“SO TONIGHT I’M GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999” LOOKING FORWARD TO THE MATRIX JON STRATTON Abstract This essay examines the cultural context of the Matrix trilogy in order to understand some of its tremendous popularity. The first film was made before the September 11 th , 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the second and third films afterwards. The first film suggests that the Zionites could be read as (good) terrorists, the later films characterise Zion in the terms of the United States fighting an evil force utilising Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Matrix itself is portrayed as offering a highly desirable reality, one better than the “real” 1999 which it simulates. This produces an ambivalence in viewers about whose side they should be on. The three films are apocalypse films. The story’s apocalyptic past is figured using connotations of the Holocaust. However, the apocalypse that the films conjure is associated with white American racial anxiety about being numerically, and culturally, overwhelmed by those designated as non- whites. “And the Princess and the Prince discuss What’s real and what is not It doesn’t matter inside the gates of Eden.” (Bob Dylan, “Gates of Eden”) “Is it real?” (Morpheus, in Matrix Revolutions) The Matrix films have been incredibly successful. The first, The Matrix, is reputed to have cost around $63 million to make – not exorbitant for a Hollywood film. Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, released in 2000 and another science fiction film, reportedly cost around $100 million. Released in the United States at the end of March 1999, The Matrix is said to have taken $171 million in the United States alone, and $456 million