The Matrix timeline and how Resurrections fits into the order, explained

Resurrections by The Matrix, director Lana Wachowski’s 2021 follow-up to the original Matrix trilogy, packs a dizzying amount of detail in its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. And in the case of connecting to the previous trilogy, bits of lore that make sense of it are dropped — and moved past — at rapid speed. If you didn’t spend the early 2000s immersed in Matrix-related mythology and the expansive transmedia experience of the animated spinoffs and games, what happened between the events of 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions ResurrectionsThis could lead to being easily forgotten.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for The Matrix Resurrections.]

End of RevolutionsNeo brokered the truce between Machines and humans. He also gave his life in order to defeat Agent Smith. After that, the Matrix was rebooted and all wars between Machines or humans were over. The film ends with The Architect telling his fellow the Oracle that any person who wanted to leave the Matrix could do so. Resurrections by The MatrixIt is 60 years since the events of The Matrix Revolutions, and the consequences of Neo’s sacrifice and the period of peace borne out of it have manifested in ways that neither the Machines nor humanity could have imagined.

After being saved from the Matrix by Bugs, Niobe and crew members of Mnemosyne’s hovership Mnemosyne again, Neo is told by Niobe that the Machines respected the truce terms by ending hostilities with the last human-populated city of Zion. This allowed humans to escape the Matrix. Although no one knows what happened to Neo or Trinity when they went to the Machine City to find out, it is celebrated that there has been peace since then. Morpheus was appointed to lead the supreme Zion Council as new-freed people arrive in greater numbers. This fragile time of peace was not to last. As the power stations connected to the Matrix began producing less and less energy, tensions flared between factions among the Machines who disagreed on whether to continue upholding the terms of Neo’s truce.

The Machines fought a civil war, and the human-sympathetic robots fled the destruction and sought refuge with the humans. While Niobe warned Morpheus of how conflict between the Machines would pose an imminent threat to Zion, Morpheus’ faith in Neo’s truce never wavered. This faith would prove to be Zion’s downfall, as the civil war between the Machines ended with the rise of a new program, The Analyst, who proceeded to purge the preexisting hierarchy of programs (i.e. The Oracle, Architect, and so on. Within the Matrix, and led an attack on the city which resulted in Morpheus’ death.

Niobe along with some other supporters of human and machine coexistence founded another city, either prior to or following the fall of Zion. The peaceful coexistence of humans and machines was the only way to create IO. This enabled the creation of technological breakthroughs and improved agricultural practices that were previously impossible because the Human-Machine War had wrought so much environmental destruction over the years. To preserve the valuable gains made in IO Niobe decided to deprioritize the release of human prisoners by The Matrix and instead chose to conceal and protect the little peace that they managed to achieve from the machinations Of The Analyst.

As for what happened to Neo and Trinity, that’s a little more complicated. Following Neo’s defeat of Agent Smith, his and Trinity’s bodies were recovered and brought to the Machine City to be studied. The Analyst, who was one of the programs present during Neo’s sacrifice, set about meticulously reconstructing their bodies over the years in order to understand the mystery at the heart of the One’s “source code.” Although the nature and origin of Neo’s powers continued to elude him, The Analyst discovered something else after reviving the two. When they were close together, Neo and Trinity created incredible amounts of energy. The Analyst created a power station separate from those containing humanity’s rest and placed Neo and Trinity inside pods.

The Analyst erased their memories and then made their avatars invisible to anyone connected to the Matrix to hide their identities. The Analyst took Neo and Trinity’s combined memories from the Matrix and converted them into a reality series of video games called The Matrix.

While he believed this was the new reality, a part of Neo’s subconscious recognized that he was still in a simulation and wanted to escape. The modal was created by Neo. It is a simulation that he creates within the Matrix. However, it contains a sentient program that he modeled on his mentor, Morpheus. Bugs, the Mnemosyne crew discovered this modal and it led to the birth of Resurrections by The MatrixNeo was saved from the Matrix by his rescuers.

Lana Wachowski, her co-workers film with beauty. The action is rarely slowed down by exposition. But it’s all there in bits and pieces and just enough gaps to let the imagination run wild.