The Matrix 4 could introduce a very surprising twist into the franchise by making Neo and Trinity into Agents of the Matrix. Set to hit theaters in 2022 after a COVID-19 related delay to its original production and release plans, The Matrix 4 will arrive following a long period of cinematic dormancy for the franchise. This obviously has set expectations high for what it has in store audiences and a huge twist at the end is exactly the sort of bold move that would reward that hype.
From the outset, the entire hook of 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix was one of catching viewers off-guard. To this day, it remains among the most heralded examples of a movie completely annihilating all expectations (the much less positive overall consensus towards The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions notwithstanding.) With a nearly two-decade absence from cinemas and massive secrecy enveloping the franchise's next chapter, The Matrix 4 surely has something new up its sleeve.
There's already a sizable question mark looming over the movie with respect to the return of Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne-Moss as Neo and Trinity, despite their respective deaths in The Matrix Revolutions. Of course, the sci-fi environment of the series offers The Matrix 4 scope to play with lots of high-concept ideas like time travel within the Matrix and an explanation for Neo and Trinity's roles in its story. Here's why Neo and Trinity could be effectively rebooted as Agents of the machine's simulated reality in The Matrix 4.
Neo & Trinity Would Make Great Agents
With Neo and Trinity having been protagonists throughout The Matrix trilogy, the notion of one or both becoming Agents inevitably brings with it the question of how and why that would come to . In the case of the latter, the short answer is that Neo and Trinity would be tremendous Agents for the machines to utilize within the Matrix. As a member of the crew of Morpheus, Trinity was highly skilled as an infiltrator into the Matrix and very adept at bending the rules of the program, while she had even succeeded in defending herself and Neo against a number of Agents. From the perspective of the Machines, Trinity being made into an Agent herself would be a net gain for the system.
Neo would be even more desirable for the Machines to co-opt into becoming an Agent, by virtue of having been The One. This had made Neo a major thorn in the side of The Architect like his five predecessors as The One before him, but Neo as an Agent would unquestionably make him a weapon the likes of which neither the machines nor The Architect had ever known. This still leaves the question of how either Neo or Trinity could be made into Agents of the Matrix, but the climax of The Matrix Revolutions may offer a clue.
Neo & Trinity's Deaths Could Make Them Susceptible
In the final battle at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Neo allows himself to be transformed into a duplicate of Agent Smith, after which Smith is deleted from the Matrix completely, with every Smith clone being destroyed. This seemingly comes at the cost of Neo's life, but the Machines could potentially have had an ulterior motive in sending him in to stop Smith. With Neo interfacing into the Matrix directly with the help of the machines and even in the Machine City, this may have given them an opening to make him into an Agent without his knowledge.
Furthermore, Neo had already become an Agent anyway once Smith had turned him, so this may have presented the machines exactly the opportunity they could have needed to rejigger his program in order to complete his transformation to the normal parameters of an Agent. How Trinity could have been made into an Agent is far less clear, given her death in the real world. However, as a human born into Matrix, the machines could still be able to access her original code to essentially re-install her as an Agent, with The Matrix Online having already made her code a plot point. The fact that Trinity is returning to The Matrix 4 at all despite her death certainly suggests some kind of unexpected plot element, and a Matrix-based resurrection of sorts certainly wouldn't be out of the question.
It Would Add Another Twist To The Matrix Mythos
More important than the plot aspects or technical specifics of Neo and Trinity becoming Agents is what it would add to the lore of The Matrix franchise itself. From their first introduction in The Matrix, the danger posed by Agents lies in their anonymity, exemplified in their ability to hijack any human mind connected to the Matrix that hasn't been freed from the system. Neo may have been briefly turned into another Smith, while Smith himself had even managed to escape into the real world by taking over the mind of Bane, but such central human characters as Neo and Trinity being fully submerged into the system as Agents would pull off the exact trick of blindsiding audiences that made the original Matrix the historic sci-fi hit that it was.
With Neo and Trinity as Agents, The Matrix 4 would return moviegoers to the stark feeling of seeing the reality of the Matrix presented so bluntly in the original. The heroes have now become, if not villains exactly, then completely alien in their nature. On the surface, it might seem that this could go no further than simply making them agents of the Machine City and thus antagonists, but this approach to the story could even put its own spin on the basic template of the original Matrix - Neo and Trinity awakening from the Matrix once more, now discovering they've been embedded even further within it as programs of the system itself, and either coming to this realization themselves or having it unveiled to them by another Morpheus-type figure.
The development of Neo and Trinity becoming Agents of the Matrix would surely take many audiences aback, which is the exact reason why it would be a superb twist for the next installment of The Matrix franchise to offer. The first chapter of the series left the world collectively stunned with its story of the truth of "Wonderland" being peeled off and shown for what it really was, its impact even leading to the birth of a new religion known as Matrixism. For The Matrix 4, revamping that basic idea with the additional catch of the series' two main protagonists becoming the very adversaries they once battled could give it just the right dose of the totally unexpected.
