At first, I was a bit confused about why The Matrix was our movie to watch with Pattern Recognition, but having thought about it I think there are two major themes that run through both works, though Pattern Recognition clearly tries to stay grounded roughly in the present, while The Matrix extrapolates them to far more extreme situations. Both works, though, demonstrate the key challenges of defining history, through a character's ability to "see beyond" reality to some hidden truths.

One element of Pattern Recognition that struck me was the use of movie titles or directors in descriptions of both people and places in the novel. While I did not enjoy the novel much as a whole, I liked how Gibson included these contemporary tidbits of information. It really helped clear up some of the environments that Cayce was in, and gave the novel a more realistic narrative feel. I noticed references to The Matrix and to female characters in general in most role-playing games on page 187. And to director Ridley Scott’s sets on page 248.

Rather than talk about the many, many sexual metaphors and images that pop up in Existenz, I'd like to talk about the film in terms of narrative, and its particular brand of alternate reality. This movie was certainly not helped by being released around the same time of the Matrix, since they cover somewhat similar ground, but Existenz is a quiet, low-budget, semi-incoherent techno-horror movie, and the Matrix is the Matrix.