Why doesn't Neo take a more advanced gun with him when going to save Morpheus?

Question

While going back into the Matrix to save Morpheus, Neo and Trinity are sent to a huge room with lots and lots of guns, but in terms of technological level, they are all the same types of guns that agents or the military would have access to in the simulated world of the matrix.

In the 'real world', there are a few scenes before that where we see Cypher using a huge futuristic laser to take out two of his collegues.

Why don't Neo and Trinity take something like that into the Matrix? Even the agents don't have a gun like that.

From my understanding of the story, when Morpheus and his team enter the Matrix, they are not entering through the regular channel that the machines use to keep the humans in the simulated reality, rather they are hacking into the Matrix, and so are able to track their position from Morpheus's ship as well as obtain as much guns and ammunition as they want. Why can't they take a more advanced futuristic gun with them?

Answer 1

Matrix is a world with rules. There are laws of nature written into the simulation.

Those weapons on the racks are nothing more than programs written by the Zion rebels. As such those programs exist within those rules and laws of nature imposed by the operating environment where they function (Matrix).

• As an example: I can use a nuke to kill everyone in a city in real world. But when I play World of Warcraft, I cannot - because WoW designers didn't provide that functionality to me with my level of access (however, THEY can write a WoW spell or back-end script to do that! which explains the advanced bug technology that you indicated was anachronistic).

• To bring the example more ontopic - imagine that Matrix programmers wrote the OS such that nuclear fission is impossible. Or even simply that there are no fissionable materials in the Matrix in the needed amount. Then - even if it's possible - and Morpheus knows it's possible - they can not create a Nuke to use in the Matrix.

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Yes, some well trained people are able to bend those rules a little (Morpheus seems the most capable). But only a little. They still mostly follow the rules of the Matrix.

The only exception is The One (Neo) - he could theoretically create any weapon he wanted. But by the time he grabs the guns he hasn't even learned to jump between buildings like Morpheus, or to do bullet time (yet). He only realizes his power after the gunrack scene, on the building roof.

Bending reality by wielding a fictional weapon is entirely beyond his ability in that specific scene.

Answer 2

The "huge futuristic laser" you've described is better known as a Lightning Rifle. It appears to be the only advanced weapon that the Zionese rebels have access to.

Since we see various anachronistic technology working inside the matrix (the bugs, for example) the decision not to use them must be an operational reason which seem to boil down to 'higher tech doesn't equal better':

There are some pretty good reasons not to use them inside the matrix;

• They're cumbersome
• They require two hands to operate
• They need an enormous, heavy power supply
• They evidently need time to recharge
• They only seem to work at short range.

The Lightning Rifle is useful as a weapon of last resort against machines but they're only peripherally effective against humans. Tank survives a blast from point-blank range where a well-aimed submachine or shotgun blast would have undoubtedly killed him.

In short

• Lightning guns are bulky and a bit crap
• Classic guns are light, effective and deadly.

Answer 3

There are no futuristic weapons shown within the movie The Matrix while people are inside The Matrix.

The only shown example of a created weapon inside The Matrix that is different than what is natural to it is Mouse's Automatic Weapon.

The Internet Movie Firearms Database

The unusual pair of large guns that Mouse (Matt Doran) uses are custom-built cam-operated electric driven automatic 12 gauge shotguns with 25-shell cylinders and a fire rate of 900 rounds per minute. They were crafted by John Bowring, lead armorer of the film. As an inside joke, Bowring named the guns "Andy" (serial no. A1169 - Leetspeak for Andy) and "Larry" (serial no. L2779 - Leetspeak for Larry) after the Wachowskis, the writers and directors of the film. It can be assumed inside the Matrix, Mouse designed these shotguns for himself like he designed the woman in the red dress.

As far as evidenced in the movie and that particular website which shows pretty much every single firearm in the movie (while inside The Matrix) there is no evidence of any actual truly Futuristic Weapons.

We know that The Matrix is coded itself to be a Simulation of the Real World. As such the weapons and gear that is used within the Matrix would most likely be restricted to what era the Matrix is simulating. All the weapons in the movie are based on real life weapons that are common within the late 90's / early new Millenium.

The only evidence of "high tech" stuff would be the bug remover and stuff that the agents use.

It looks pretty much like some sort of sonogram machine with a tube that sucks stuff out. This is an example of a "jerry-rigged" device, though I don't feel that it would be considered futuristic.

Also since Agents work for The Matrix itself it's entirely possible that they have access to stuff that others do not. Like the drug used on Morpheus.

Overall I think that if we use Occam's Razor, the principle that among competing theories the one with the least assumptions will most likely be correct, that they can't really create truly futuristic weapons. Sure there's evidence of jerry-rigged stuff, but there's no evidence of weapons that would be considered truly futuristic. As opposed to the assumption that there are people who are knowledgeable enough who can hack / create weapons that are considered futuristic, are capable of doing so, but then choose not to for whatever reason.

The only person who is capable of ACTUALLY creating whatever thing he wanted would be Neo because he can bend reality within The Matrix. Though there is no evidence of him willing anything into existence or having the knowledge of being able to create such advanced things. I believe his powers would be more like The Green Lantern, his powers are pretty much limited by his will / imagination.

Answer 4

He brought a minigun.

Specifically, a GE M134 Minigun. It is capable of firing 6,000 rounds of 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition per minute, although the prop guys apparently said Neo is only firing at roughly half that rate, or about 3,000 rounds per minute.

Is this as advanced as the crazy lightning gun Cypher uses, and is then killed with? No. But it is far better suited for the task at hand.

As we see in the scene where Cypher kills Dozer and gets blasted, the crazy lightning gun takes some time to recharge between shots. Neo is going to take on three agents at once. Agents are known for their ability to dodge bullets and move with superhuman speed. In this scenario, the crazy lightning gun would actually be a liability, not an asset, because it would leave Neo almost defenseless while the gun was recharging. A minigun is actually a much better option for Neo's purposes here, because it produces a virtual wall of projectiles, and being belt-fed, reloading/recharging is not an issue.

When a body is hit by a burst of fire from a minigun, it isn't just riddled with holes; it is literally torn apart. It isn't a matter of getting hit a few times. It is a matter of being cut in half, having limbs severed, and having chunks of your body blown across the room. There is no possible way that the agents could have been so effective in avoiding being hit for so long (and it is worth mentioning that Neo is an incredible shot, because he somehow managed to avoid hitting Morpeus, which is also very unlikely).

Again, the crazy lightning gun might have been more advanced than a minigun, but not by much, and in any case, the minigun was a much more appropriate weapon for what Neo was trying to do. He needed to generate a massive amount of fire, and no other weapon in the world is better at doing that than a minigun. He made the right choice.

Answer 5

The answer could be as simple as practicality.

• Since the Matrix is coded to resemble the late 20th/early 21st century it stands to reason that the firearms tech that was coded in was of the same era. Rather than take the time (which they didn't have ) to write code for futuristic weapons they simply chose to go for the "off the rack" option. This would have allowed them to jump straight from the Construct to the Matrix, and also to allow for resupply of ammunition should they need it without further coding.
• The weapons they chose were all easily concealable under their trench coats, whereas something like the Lightning Rifle would have required an external power source, and would have been bulky and cumbersome.

Answer 6

Matrix was not really a world per se but rather a world emulated in software. This means that everything they use on their ventures to Matrix has to adhere to certain rules -- i.e. whatever they got had to be compatible with the operating system. I'm pretty sure that whoever designed the Matrix made sure that there were no subroutines that would allow existence of nuclear weapons.

Another possibility is that writing software that allows one to start thermonuclear reaction in Matrix is so complex that it's beyond abilities of Zion folks. Because of that they created devices that use simple newtonian physics to function (one can't just disable combustion functionality used in cartridges as it would also disable internal combustion engines).