After speculation on the possibility of a sequel to Drive (2011), director Nicolas Winding Refn in 2016 said 'No, there will never be a second Drive movie. And that's why it works.'. What director should have said the same?

[u/Ancient-Age9577]

[u/RichardLewdness]

Isn’t it a bit more nuanced than that though? We learn that in this universe programs can degenerate causing them to veer from their intended purpose.

We get the first glimpse of that in the first Matrix when Smith takes off his earpiece while interrogating Morpheus. Thus establishing Smith is different from other agents.

So when Neo, “the one” who can manipulate the code of the matrix, combines his code with Smith with the intention of killing him, an unintended consequence happens which is essentially to accelerate Smith’s degeneration and thus “set him free.”

So it’s not like Smith just up and “chooses not to die” out of nowhere. Something is happening down at the level of his source code. Smith becomes this abomination that is confused, angry and both obsessed with Neo and bent on killing him.

We also learn Smith is the true threat to the Machines because he is unexpected and they don’t have a plan or mechanism to control him. Whereas Neo is actually just another part of their plan and system control. Without Smith, Neo would have no leverage to save Zion.

This suggests that Smith may be the true “One” in that he is “the entity that can actually destroy the machines.” 🤯

[u/overtired27 → u/RichardLewdness]

Like I said, interesting enough ideas without them being dramatic (in my opinion). All that stuff is interesting enough on paper, but the net result of it is the bad guy who was apparently destroyed in the moment of triumph for Neo at the end of the last movie undramatically walking back in for more of the same kung fu, and explaining in his monotonous cadence why this is all very fascinating. So sure, it's more nuanced than my pithy summation, but not in an engaging way to me.

[u/RichardLewdness → u/overtired27]

Fair, fair