Movies - Architect

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The Architect is a fictional character appearing in the last two films of the Matrix trilogy, created by the Wachowski brothers. The character is played by Helmut Bakaitis.

The Architect is first encountered by Neo appearing as a manicured, humorless bureaucrat sitting in a room whose walls are covered by television screens in a pivotal scene in Matrix Reloaded. He reveals himself to Neo as being the creator of the Matrix. A sentient computer program, he appears as a white-bearded old man (bearing a vague similarity to some Christian depictions of God, Colonel Sanders, and Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, plus diametrically opposed to the preferred shell of the Oracle, that of a black woman). In an extended period of convoluted dialogue, the Architect explains that his role is to "balance the equation" of the Matrix.

The Architect's role

As alluded to by Agent Smith in the first film, the very first version of the Matrix created by the Architect was a failure, ironically because it was a utopia. Its human denizens refused to accept a world of complete perfection. Thus, the Architect modified the Matrix to bring it closer to what the machines understood about human nature. However, the Architect was again beset by failure, as humans had no real choice to act of their own will.

Crucially, the Architect turned to the Oracle, a program designed to understand the human psyche. The Oracle noted that the fault of the earlier Matrix iterations was that they did not take into account the factor of choice; as no machine had any choice as to what to do or what to think, the Architect had merely overlooked this, and in doing so, he had created a system which was at conflict with the minds of its inhabitants, for whom choice was neurologically inherent. The Oracle's role was to add a balancing yet un-balancing human element that ultimately allowed humans to accept the Matrix by providing the inhabitants with a choice, even if the humans were only aware of the difference at a subconscious level. While this worked for most humans, the Architect had to deal with the 1% of humans that would not accept the program by allowing the doubters to escape the Matrix and create Zion, which would keep the Matrix program stable due to the fact that the human neuro-imperative to choose was satisfied: those who chose to believe were integrated painlessly into the system, and those who chose to disbelieve were allowed to wake up. However, as the Architect noted, the systemic anomaly of choice inherent in this new design was statistical in nature (much as in the manner of entropy); the humans escaping from the Matrix, however few, would inevitably pose an escalating probability of disaster, as they banded together in the real world and grew in number over time. Eventually, the free humans would grow so many that they would begin to pose a serious military threat to the machine dominion of the earth. Meanwhile, the free humans would inevitably hack into the Matrix in an attempt to free others and bolster their ranks, creating an incrementally increasing risk of system failure as the ever-and-ever increasing numbers of already freed humans continued to free more humans from the Matrix.

To combat this end, the Architect then designed a further system of centennially cyclical control: He programmed The One. Every time the human threat both within and without the Matrix had grown to proportions which began to threaten machine hegemony, a man would be born into the Matrix who would carry within himself the source code of the Matrix "Prime Program". Before this had happened, however, the Oracle would propagate amongst the free humans a myth and a Prophecy about a man who could do as he wished within the Matrix, and who would arrive to free humankind and destroy the machines for ever. Once The One emerged and summarily met the criteria of the Prophecy, the Architect would arrange to have Zion destroyed by a machine army. The Oracle would then guide The One to the Source (the machine mainframe), where he would allegedly use his seemingly limitless powers to wreak havoc on the machines and destroy them, according to the Prophecy. Before he reached the Source, however, The One would be compelled into a confrontation with the Architect in which the true nature of the Matrix, as well as the inevitable doom of Zion would be revealed to him. Since the Matrix program must always present a choice by design, The One must be presented with a choice in this case as well. In the Architect's room of screens, there are two doors. Through the first, The One may return to the Source at which point the Matrix source code would be reinserted into the program, allowing for the system to reboot. Through the second, the One may return to the Matrix. A selection of the second door would result in the Matrix completing its one hundred year cycle and rebooting, without the Prime Program to boot from, however, the system would crash, killing all of the inhabitants of the Matrix; coupled with the destruction of Zion, this would spell extinction for the human species. A selection of the first door would allow for Zion to be destroyed, but the Matrix inhabitants to be salvaged; The One would then be allowed to select from the Matrix twenty-three individuals, sixteen females and seven males to be the first freed within the new iteration and to found a new Zion, thusly validating Morpheus' statement that it was The One who freed the first humans and taught them the truth. Theoretically, this persuasive set of circumstances should be enough to coerce The One into participating in the recycling of the Matrix system and beginning the centennial process anew. According to the Architect, this has occurred five times in the past: Neo and the Matrix he inhabits are the sixth version.

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Movies - Architect

The Architect's role

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