For a guy who’s allegedly not in the film, Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus has now appeared in two teasers for The Matrix Resurrections, which continues to set up a reality-bending mystery on par with the original film. In the latest teaser released during The Game Awards on Thursday night, Keanu Reeves‘ Neo gets his first taste of how things work in this current version of The Matrix as Jessica Henwick‘s Bugs reveals that hackers no longer have to rush to phone booths like in the first films. Instead, portals handle all of the traveling, and it allows the freedom fighters to move quickly from a moving train in Japan to a hidden building where they find Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpehus waiting for them.
However, there’s some notable imagery waiting for them. As Neo and Bugs enter the room, scenes from the first Matrix film are projected onto floating screens, and they prominently feature Fishburne’s version of Morpheus. Apparently, a prior meeting with Neo went south in the new film, and so this time, Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus tried a different approach.
“Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia,” he tells Neo before the clip ends.
Of course, this raises more questions than it answers, as these films are fond of doing. More specifically, there seems to be a weird blending of reality and fiction because it’s starting to feel like The Matrix Resurrections is aware that The Matrix movies exist? We could be way off, but the teasers have been leaning heavily on feelings of déjà vu, and it wouldn’t be surprising if this latest installment went buck-wild on the meta-commentary.
The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters and HBO Max on December 22.