Whether they choose to see her vision is up to them. Filmmakers don’t often get much of a say in how their work is adopted and interpreted, but with Matrix Resurrections, Lana Wachowski has a chance-after more than 20 years of fans interpreting them in their own ways-to stipulate how she wants her movies to be viewed. In the years since 2003, both of the series' creators have come out as trans women, and Lilly Wachowski has noted that the franchise is an allegory for trans identity. It must speak to long-time fans and also answer some of their extrapolations from the source material. It was during those years that the Wachowskis’ central metaphor was co-opted by forces antithetical to their vision-a shift that gives this new Matrix even higher stakes. It was harder to see then, but a cultural shift was beginning, one that would change the political landscape forever and ultimately help usher in the era of Donald Trump. By the time the original trilogy wrapped in 2003, 9/11 had happened and George W. There they were, right on the landing page: a red pill and a blue one. The economy was strong and capitalism was the counterculture’s main enemy. When the original Matrix premiered in 1999, it was the tail-end of Bill Clinton's presidency. Click the red, and the voice of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (who is playing an as-yet-unnamed character, but seems to be filling the Morpheus role this time around) recites the time of day before saying “that couldn’t be further from the truth.” Click the blue, and it’s the voice of Neil Patrick Harris saying “you’ve lost your capacity to discern reality from fiction.” Harris, it seems, is Neo’s therapist, delivering a never-ending stream of blue pills. There they were, right on the landing page: a red pill and a blue one. Or at least it was until Tuesday, when a mysterious new landing page emerged on, teasing the trailer that dropped this morning. The phrase perhaps reached its nadir last year when Elon Musk sent a tweet encouraging his followers to “take the red pill,” to which then-presidential adviser Ivanka Trump responded “Taken!” Not one to let her work be misconstrued, Lilly Wachowski-who, along with her sister Lana, created the Matrix franchise-quickly responded “ fuck both of you.” It was one of the first, if not the first, times the movie’s creators expressed discontent at the way their creation had been co-opted by the darker corners of the internet. In fact, it really could only be debated otherwise as we’ve gotten away from the 1990s. The themes really could not be more similar, and the timing is just perfect, Total Recall coming out 9 years before the Matrix. Most recently, the idea of “red-pilling” has become a metaphor for a certain kind of political awakening, an adoption of far-right, and often misogynistic, views. In Total Recall, the red pill is more akin to the blue pill from the Matrixa promise to return to a life of convenient delusion. In the two decades since, the sociopolitical meaning of red pill vs. His narrative arc was changed, and a meme was born. In 1999, Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus presented this option to Keanu Reeves’ Neo, who gulped down the red one with only the slightest trepidation. Take the blue, remain in blissful ignorance. Swallow the red and it’s like eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil-suddenly all the universe’s dark secrets are revealed. The choice has always been, relatively speaking, simple: red pill or blue pill.

Matrix red and blue pill velcro patch