The Matrix Resurrections arrived in 2021 and had a chance to expand on the world from the movies and show the real villains. Instead, it chose to tell a meta story that brought Neo and Trinity back into the VR world for a slight re-telling of the first movie. That was a disappointment for many fans.

It all resulted in a terrible box office take and lackluster reviews. What the film should have done was move beyond what was shown before, with the man vs. machines storyline played out in the first three movies. Instead, The Matrix 4 should have shown what the original films hinted at; the real Matrix villains were the humans.

Why Humans Are The Real Villains Of The Matrix Trilogy

The Humans Don’t All Agree On Being ‘Freed’ From The Matrix

Humans are often the main villains in most horror, dystopian, and apocalyptic stories. While the AI is seen as the main antagonist in many of these films, humans created the computer systems to do what is best to protect the world and humanity. This is true in movies like The Terminator and The Matrix.

In the Terminator franchise, the AI killed most humans because it realized they posed the biggest threat to the world than any other force of nature. In The Matrix, it was similar, as the AI realized the world was being destroyed, and humans provided the batteries needed to keep the computers running to protect the world.

The difference is that, in The Matrix, the computers enslaved the world rather than destroying humanity. AI gave people the gift of a dream world to live in with virtual reality. This gift was to allow humans to continue to “live” in happiness and peace, while the AI did the hard work of keeping the planet alive.

However, people like Morpheus want to bring down computers and “free” humans, whether they want it or not, and this not only puts the planet back in danger again, but pulls many people unwillingly out of their happy lives inside the Matrix. There are two ideas for the villains of this story.

The first are humans like Cypher who want to stay in the Matrix and betray their friends to do so. In the first movie, he is shown as selfish because he likes living a good life, eating steak, wearing nice clothes, and not fighting for survival every day. But, is this selfish?

Is Cypher the real villain, or is it Morpheus for trying to force people like Cypher to leave their lives of happiness? This was also touched upon in The Animatrix, the anime short that tells side stories about the world from the movies.

This includes the trial for machine rights with B1-66ER, where humans tried to continue to exert control, despite their own shortcomings. The Matrix 4 should have been a story about humans battling each other over their right to choose, not another story about battling machines that really just wanted to save the planet.

Humans Should’ve Been The Main Villains Of The Matrix 4

The Matrix Resurrections Retold The Same Story As The First Movie

The best part about making humans the real villains of the Matrix franchise is that it is in no way clear who the real villains are. People like Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus want to free all humanity from the grip of the machines to allow them the freedom to be who they want to be in the real world.

There is a big problem with that. As Cypher showed, there is a big reason why humans don’t want this freedom. The real world is hard, dangerous, and ᴅᴇᴀᴅly. The chance to die in terrible ways is expanded tenfold when humans are freed from their cocoons and released into the damaged and devastated Earth.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to leave the fantasy world where everything is normal and relatively safe to go into a world where even the environment could kill them? Morpheus wants to use Neo to free humanity, even if that is not what humanity wants.

To look at it from their point of view, Morpheus is the real villain in the first film, trying to impose his will on all of humanity, whether they want it or not. The humans need to be the main villains because that is a more complex and difficult story to tell.

The AI and machines as villains is easy because it is humans vs. machines, and that is a fear that goes back many decades in cinema history. However, what if the machines aren’t really the bad guys?

The franchise shows that the AI believes it is doing what is best to save Earth while also keeping humans relatively happy in their dream world. Many humans, such as Cypher, feel the same way. If Morpheus and Neo force humans from their dream world and into the real world, how many of them would hate them for it?

How many would immediately rebel and try to get back into the Matrix, giving the computer the power back? That is the more interesting story to tell in the Matrix franchise, rather than just another battle with Mr. Smith and the sentient AI inside the Matrix.

The Matrix’s Next Movie Can’t Just Be Another Humans Vs. Machines Story

The Humans Present The More Interesting Story

The biggest problem with The Matrix Resurrections was that it told almost the same story as the first film. There were some creatively intriguing differences, including the meta text concerning Neo supposedly creating the Matrix video game series in that world. However, in the end, it was still Neo battling the AI in the Matrix, trying to gain freedom.

That story was told better in the first film, and seeing it here, even with the differences, didn’t pull the same weight. If there is a fifth Matrix movie, it can’t just keep regurgitating the man vs. machines storyline because there is nothing new to farm from that angle. Instead, it has to be something bigger and better.

The AI is dangerous, and many humans want their freedom from the machine, but they are not the only people whose beliefs and wants matter. The machines saved the Earth at the expense of humanity, and many humans living in the fantasy world created by the AI like it there.

The real battle in the fifth Matrix movie needs to expand on that if the franchise wants to continue to be the revolutionary series that the Wachowski siblings created so many years ago.