December 2021 is quite the month for movie fans. In a matter of days, we had two major releases from two beloved franchises. On the one hand, there’s the most anticipated movie of the year, Spider-Man: No Way Home, which set new records for the pandemic. Then we have The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth installment in the series. Unlike No Way Home, Matrix 4 is available both in theaters and on HBO Max, which means you don’t have to leave the house to watch it. And, like its rival, Matrix 4 has a post-credits scene of its own.
Before we explain what it all means, you should know that some Matrix 4 spoilers follow below. You’d better watch the movie first.
It’s Marvel’s MCU that made post-credits scenes popular with fans. So many other franchises use the trick to tease future attractions that I scrolled through the credits to find out whether Matrix 4 got one the minute the film ended.
It turns out that, yes, the film does feature a post-credits scene. In hindsight, the previous movies in the series could have benefited from post-credits teasers. But post-credits scenes weren’t a thing two decades ago.
On the other hand, just because you can add a tag at the end of your movie doesn’t mean you have to. And Matrix 4 falls into that category. Its credits scene is something the movie doesn’t need. Then again, it’s exactly the kind of post-credits that the movie deserves.
Matrix 4 post-credits scene explained
Without spoiling too much of the Matrix 4 action, we can tell you that the original movie spends a lot of time dealing with the meta of Matrix. Maybe too much time. The flashback shouldn’t be as big of a problem, but it’s as if Matrix 4 tries to make us relieve some of the iconic scenes in the movie while trying to reinvent the same scenes.
Where’s the problem with that? Well, at some point in the film, Matrix 4 makes fun of the culture of sequels and reboots. Let me rephrase that, a sequel movie that soft-reboots the franchise, makes fun of creators who create sequels and reboots. It probably doesn’t get any more meta than that.
With all that in mind, the Matrix 4 post-credits gives us a team of creators around a table, brainstorming the ideas for future content. “Face reality, people, movies are dead. Games are dead. Narrative? Dead,” says one of them. “Media is nothing but neuro-trigger response and viral conditioning,” says another. So the obvious idea of going forward with a sequel is cat videos. Hence, “The Catrix.” End scene.
In other words, you can skip the post-credits scenes if you decide to see Matrix 4 over the holidays. If we’ll ever get a Matrix 5, it’ll certainly not be about cat videos.
