Two of the most important sci-fi films of the past two decades are arguably The Matrix and Inception.
Both explored the ideas of dreaming and consciousness in exhilarating and innovative ways. Yes, the two Matrix trilogies that followed, Reloaded and Revolutions, are best forgotten about but the first movie changed modern cinema. No questions.
With regards to the two films having any links to each other, there have been numerous fan theories spread across Reddit that are quite plausible. There are also arguments that many films serve as prequels to The Matrix in one way or another, from Dark City to 13th Floor.
This extremely thorough and calculated theory by Raoni Lacerda at Cracked though certainly holds water better than most of them.
I'd highly recommend visiting the article to get a full scope of the situation but here are the most immediate points from the post:
"In the first Matrix movie, Morpheus (Laurence Goddamn Fishburne) explains to Neo that there was a war against the Machine overlords. They don't know who attacked first, but humanity definitely "scorched the sky" because it was an abundant source of energy for the Machines. Now, forget for an instant about the stupidity of using humans as a source of energy and think about the humans' contingency plan: Pollute the world to starve the Machines." (Via Raoni Lacerda)
It gets deeper, Lacerda goes on to explain that "Fischer Morrow is an energy company in the Inception universe that's about to gain a monopoly over the world's energy supply. The CEO of a rival company named Saito knows that if this happens Fischer Morrow will become a new superpower. Maurice Fischer is a dying old man, and his son, Robert, will gain control over the company. Cobb and his team go into Robert Fischer's dream to implant the idea to end the monopoly and just chill the hell out for a bit.
"What does it have to do with The Matrix? Cobb successfully makes an inception on Robert, so young Robert gives up the company's monopoly in order to make something else: a name of his own. So Robert turns his company toward making cheap, efficient solar energy technology to improve the world, the same technology that would be the Machines' main source of energy. That's why humanity had to pollute the sky. If the inception wasn't made, the solar technology wouldn't be developed and Fischer Morrow wouldn't be providing the Machines with what was necessary in self-sustaining them."
Like I said this is all Raoni's work and it's hugely complex and fascinating, much like The Matrix trilogy was, to start with anyway.
Another point raised is that the now infamous bullet time is a direct result of Inception's dilation of time: "Neo trains in martial arts for over 10 hours before having a sparring match against Morpheus. The knowledge isn't implanted in his brain. It's mentioned in Inception that time is 20 times slower between layers. Now think about if it's optimized and can be changed to, let's say, 60 times or 400 times. When Neo is learning kung fu, he is actually boringly studying all the years required to master it."
This is of course just another theory that suggests everything happen in the character's minds, but what do you think?
Huge credit to Cracked, once again.
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