Ahead of The Matrix Resurrections first trailer release on Thursday, Variety reports that Warner Bros. just launched a unique, interactive website featuring a widely divergent first look at the 22-year-old franchise’s newest installment.
The website is synonymous with the world of the Matrix, trapping users in a system that allows them to make a choice: see reality as it’s presented to them, or seek the truth.
So by this creative format, users who click on WhatIsTheMatrix.com are greeted with the simple choice featured in The Matrix (1999): Choose the blue pill and stick to the reality you’ve known your whole life. Choose the red pill, and you’re ready to dive straight into the rabbit hole.
Each choice allows users to see two different angles on what appears to be the central story in Resurrections. First teased to exhibitors during CinemaCon in August, Neo (Keanu Reeves) is back inside the Matrix, taking blue pills and seeing a therapist played by Neil Patrick Harris. That is until his seemingly complacent routine is interrupted by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s character, who gets him to see that everything he knows is fabricated.
When users click on the blue pill, they hear a voiceover by Harris’ character saying, “You’ve lost your capacity to discern reality from fiction.” He urges the user to accept their reality as real, and the current time flashes on the screen. Harris reads it: “Anything else is just your mind playing tricks on you.”
And when users click the red pill, they hear Abdul-Mateen’s voice warning them that believing the current time “couldn’t be further from the truth”.
Quick-cut shots from Resurrections flash on the screen during both scenarios. Each time a user clicks on a pill, the footage changes slightly.
Check out the website linked above!