The Matrix world has expanded in the age of media convergence, where The Matrix narrative has been told through multiple mediums to create entertaining content and a coherent story. The Matrix filmmakers tried to offer the Matrix consumers amusement content where the story develops in multiple channels which could be experienced independently. Consequently, each new text of the Matrix unfolds a deeper meaning of the story and fills the gaps in the other text. This essay will discuss how The Matrix movie relates to Jenken’s storytelling theory, how the understanding of the specific work is deepened through knowledge of transmedia storytelling, and in what manner this work generally affects the understanding of transmedia as a phenomenon.

The original movie “The Matrix” (1999) captivates consumers with its universe. The line between reality and illusion is foggy, besides the concept of humans’ bodies being classified as an energy source to power machines. At the same time, their minds are occupied with a delusion of a digital world. Consequently, the consumers have the inquisitiveness to know “What is The Matrix?” (Jenkins, 2008). Henry Jenkins (2007) describes the ideology of transmedia storytelling as a process where different story elements are spread out across multiple platforms to compose a cohesive entertainment experience. Each installment has its unique way of contributing to the story’s unfolding. The first Matrix movie hints a lot about events that happened before, but the consumer had not been provided with enough information about the backstory of The Matrix. When Morpheus and Neo had a discussion about the birth of AI in the early 21st century in The Matrix film, Morpheus said: “A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines, we do not know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky.” (The Matrix, 1999); The spectator cannot find out further details. The spectators cannot find out further details hence the development of the story in the form of nine short animated movies – “Animatrix”. Animatrix explains to the audience what happened before, and it was because of “The Operation Dark Storm,” which was made by humans, to cut the machines off from their primary source. The animated series reveals a few key details about the lore of the Matrix franchise. It explores the backstory of how exactly machines came to conquer the earth (The infomania, 2019). As a result, it was perplexing to understand Matrix’s complex mythology without reading the webcomics to have the backstory and watching the animated short films to find out what happened previously.

The Animatrix provides The Matrix fans with details that connect not only to backstory but also information and characters, which give hints to the next Matrix movie. The Animatrix could also be described as closing the loopholes between The Matrix movies. “The Matrix: Reloaded” (2003), the sequel of The Matrix, starts without a recap and also expands into more secondary characters (Jenkins, 2008). Hence, the Animatrix combines events together to provide the Matrix’s fans with a logical connection to The Matrix world. Namely, the kid, Michael Popper, is a secondary character introduced in “The Matrix Reloaded.” The kid had a one-minute dialogue with Neo; he thanked Neo for saving his life. If the spectator only watches the movie, he/she may not understand that much of that dialogue in the second matrix movie. In order to be able to, the spectator needs to watch the kid’s story in Animatrix to know the previous events (Willems, 2019). Thus, the spectator will get more understanding and sympathy for the kid by going through something that reminds him a lot of what Neo himself went through at the beginning of the first film and how the kid is a reflection of Neo. In contrast, If the spectator just watched “The Matrix Reloaded,” it could be some snooping and annoying little guy who just came and talked, and you have no idea what happened, how he saved, and how he found Neo.

Matrix franchising does follow the transmedia techniques well. The Transmedia technique has three potential effects/opportunities. The first opportunity is to develop the fictional world, the second one to fill gaps in storytelling, and the third is the potential opportunity to expand into reaching a new target of consumers (Freeman, M & Gambarato, R. eds, 2018). The way the Matrix has developed the Matrix world helped gain/extend new consumers. In addition, they distributed more information to The Matrix buffs through the other media (webcomics, Animatrix, and video games) to fill the gaps and enrich the matrix experience. It has to be mentioned that The Matrix opened up interaction among The Matrix fans on digital platforms due to a good deal of messages that it includes. The producers lay out lots of little details in the sceptical hypothetical Matrix world, which makes Matrix’s fans sit and nerd themselves and share their experiences and analyses with others.

While The Matrix films received some criticism due to different parts sometimes becoming independent but sometimes they are related tightly. In other words, some events might seem less understandable because the consumer did not assimilate all the parts of the story (Jenkins, 2007). As exemplified by the classic scene in “The Matrix Reloaded,” where Morpheus falls off the truck while he is fighting with the enemies on the highway and Neo shows up and catches him in perfect timing. In this case, the scene seems like “a deus ex machina” if the spectator only watches the film (Ricksand, 2022). To clarify, “deus ex machina” is an expression that means when a hero is so close to losing or dying, all of a sudden, something comes up and helps him. In contrast, if the spectator has assimilated all the parts, the spectator has already gotten a little more context and explanation of what has happened previously. In other words, it is not deus ex machina while it is a whole path in the game to help Morpheus. Jenkins explains that the critics have to review and pay attention to the surrounding media of the work, which could be sequels or prequels, or both of the work. e.g., by watching short films, reading comics/ novels, and playing games. In this way, the critics will have the whole idea of the work without missing out on essential information in the work’s plot (Jenkins, 2008). That is why critics might think that Neo in the second movie came from nowhere because they did have info about the video game The Matrix Path of Neo (fandom, 2022). Through The Matrix franchise, key data bits are passed on through these media. There is no single source or ur-text where one can turn and pick up all of the data required to comprehend the Matrix universe (Jenkins, 2007).

The ideal transmedia is that each part of the transmedia experience should be fairly independent, i.e. that the spectator sees that part and gets something out of it; the point is that the viewer should not sit with question marks (2007). Regarding the fourth Matrix movie, “The Matrix Resurrections,” opinions are divided between supporters and opponents if the spectator can watch it independently. On the one hand, some claim that the spectator does not need to watch the previous Matrix movies before The Matrix Resurrections because it provides enough context to make it valuable. The movie can keep the audience informed of everything they need to know (Schwerdtfeger, 2021). On the other hand, in the fourth film of the Matrix, “Matrix Resurrections,” if the viewer did not watch the original Matrix trilogy, it will be challenging to follow the events in the movie. On account of that it includes a lot of references and flashbacks (Motherwell, 2021). It is perplexing to understand Matrix’s complex mythology without reading the webcomics to have the backstory, watching the animated short films, and playing the video game to appreciate the whole concept of the Matrix (Jenkins, 2008).