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Agreed.

Personally my own take on Buddhism and The Matrix, is that if The Matrix were real, than deep meditation, probably to the point of enlightenment, would be 'freeing your mind'... the whole thing in 'World Record' about how people with higher emotion and intrigue fits nicely there too, I think.

'Escpaing' the Matrix, in a phrase, is thinking outside the box (literally!)

~AI

The Greek connections:

To cite a few: Neo is Ancient Greek for "new"; Morpheus is the name for the "god of dreams (and sleep)" in Greek Mythology; and the whole Matrix storyline is a thinly veiled rearticulation of the myth of Prometheus, the half-god (i.e. Neo) who stole fire (i.e godly powers) from the gods (i.e. the makers and keepers of the Matrix) and who pays dearly for doing so.

Persephone, who in Greek mythology is the wife of Hades, the god of the Underworld. Hades actually took her against her will, so she has mixed feelings about him. She also intercedes with him on behalf of mortals -e.g. Orpheus and Euridyce- to help them achieve their goals. This parallels Reloaded.

The evil twins seem to be an intriguingly corrupted subversion of classic mythology's Gemini-twins: Castor and Pollux -- Castor and Polydeuces in Greek myth, unless they are a transposition of Cerberus, the three-headed, snake-tailed dog viciously guarding the access to the Underworld. The latter seems more likely as it is far closer to the actual role of the twins in the movie.

Morpheus speech to the people of Zion is evocative of well-know classic orations, in particular Demosthenes' world-famous Philippics, a series of orations rallying the Athenians against the bold ambitions of Philip the Macedonian. Demosthenes is most probably the world's greatest orator ever.

One or two sentences of Morpheus speech were also dripping with referential winking, pointing to a classic Roman expression and style-figure, best know in the version "Hannibal ad portas (Romanas ipsas est)!" The enemy / barbarians are at the gates (of Rome/Zion).

Cool stuff there, Omega. You could write a book on that The Matrix Guide to Mythology...Anyway, re-reading Alice in Wonderland... and near the start there's something, but I can't remember what it is... ah, here we go.

For you see, many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

Backing up the Alice/Neo thing once more.

its alice in wonderland mixed with some eastern philosophy with soem christian stuff and pinch of modern philosophy. add specular action and good dialogue and then put in oven on 450 degrees for 2 hours... if done properly you have the matrix. personally i think its heavier on the alice in wonderland... but i've been to wonderland so i know what they are talking about.