Block 18

[Zeke]

[color=#000000ost_uid0](Hey, I forgot to give the Block 17 thread a subtitle! Â Dang.)

Before I start on this, about last block... I don't think we should be all that worried about how long it took. Â Remember, the previous two blocks went [iost_uid0]really[/iost_uid0] fast, so we're still making good progress. Â Also, Block 17 wasn't like the other slow blocks we've had -- it took a long time not because it was forgotten for weeks or something but because the ideas just kept coming. Â So let's not be too frustrated at how long it took. Â But let's not take that long with this one, either.

Morpheus and the group (all the [iost_uid0]Nebuchadnezzar[/iost_uid0] crew but Tank and Dozer) enter the Matrix. Â Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, and Cypher get in a car and head off to see the Oracle, the wonderful Oracle of Oz. Â There are some small bits here we can probably skip -- Cypher dropping his cellphone in the garbage for the Agents to trace, Trinity not telling Neo what the Oracle said to her. Â On the elevator ride up, Morpheus and Neo discuss the Oracle; apparently she made the prophecy about the One, and told Morpheus he would be the one to find him.

In the anteroom, Neo waits with "the other Potentials." Â Rather than potential slayers, these are little kids doing classic psychic stuff like levitating blocks and bending spoons. Â The spoon-bender, a bald boy dressed like a Zen monk, tells Neo the secret is not to bend the spoon but to realize the truth -- that there is no spoon. Â When he sees this, he will see that it is not the spoon but himself that bends. Â Neo picks up a spoon and has [iost_uid0]just[/iost_uid0] managed to bend it when he's called in.

(Just a little sidebar... anyone heard the old Zen koan about the flag? Â It goes like this: Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: 'The flag is moving.' Â The other said: 'The wind is moving.' Â The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: 'Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.'")

Let's say 2-3 scenes for this block. Â The synopsis is here, and it's worth reading because there's a whole conversation between Neo and Morpheus that didn't make it into the movie.[/colorost_uid0]