Longtime fans will be hoping that The Matrix 4 marks a return to form for the blockbuster sci-fi franchise, with the movie facing a tough task in both drawing in an entirely new audience and trying to atone for the mistakes of both Reloaded and Revolutions, which saw the groundbreaking original followed up by two hugely disappointing back-to-back sequels that led to the series going out with a whimper.
Lana Wachowski is flying solo behind the camera this time, and despite how strong the Wachowskis have always been at creating unique mythologies and building the world around them, their writing has often let them down. Having been delayed by almost an entire year though, the production now has a little more time to fine-tune the script to justify its existence as a worthy successor to the original trilogy, and not just the latest in a long line of late-arriving sequels designed solely to cash in on a marketable brand.
Concrete plot details are virtually nonexistent at this point, and it hasn’t even been officially confirmed who any of the new additions to the cast are playing yet, but a new theory speculates that if Aquaman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II ends up portraying a young Morpheus as has been widely rumored, then Neo’s latest adventure could end up involving time travel.
As per the theory, Neo and Trinity could discover the ability to travel through time inside of the Matrix itself and theoretically visit every previous version of the artificial reality, which is how they might end up encountering an alternate timeline’s version of Morpheus. The theory goes on to speculate that it could be a ploy designed by the machines in an effort to get Neo to change the course of history to make their win in the war against humanity happen in much quicker and easier fashion, until he figures it out and tries to put a stop to it completely.
While time travel sounds like a cop-out for a franchise that previously prided itself on having such big ideas, if it really is the direction that The Matrix 4 is heading in, then you can bet your bottom dollar on Lana Wachowski at least attempting to put a fresh spin on such a familiar storytelling device.