（站主注：这篇Afterword被收录在The Art of The Matrix一书中。2008年，百度贴吧的“杂物”曾经将全文手打出来发在了赛博朋克吧中，并附上了自己的翻译。以下内容便是从他原先发的帖子中转载来的。）

作者：威廉·吉布森

翻译：杂物

我害怕看这部电影。我害怕是因为这部电影很流行，我的朋友也跟我说这和我自己的作品很相似，还因为是基努·里维斯主演，他曾经在一部我自己写的电影中演主角。我害怕是因为我会嫉妒，我会埋怨这部电影的创造者，或者仅仅是不高兴。我之前看过这部电影的剧本，没想到他们能作出这么好的作品，好莱坞以前在处理虚拟现实的主题上总是很糟的。

这部电影在美国已经上映几周了。

当我最终去看这部电影的时候，只是因为我当时一个人住在Santa Monica的一间海滨公寓里。外面又黑又冷，还在下雨。我的一个好朋友Roger来救我了，他认为我会很喜欢《黑客帝国》。他把我拉进雨里，拉进他的那辆老爷大众。

我知道我会喜欢《黑客帝国》。

我立刻喜欢上了《黑客帝国》，更喜欢那个未完的结尾。我感到了一种看科幻片久违了的刺激。我体内的好讥讽的因素一直等着失望，等着错误的动作，等着低劣的解释，以及好莱坞在拍这类电影中经常犯的错误。但是没有等到，当Neo在电影结尾飞天的时候，我也跟着飞翔了，我在从未感到过的天真的愉悦中度过了很长一段时间。

当我回到范库弗，我立刻带我15岁的女儿去看《黑客帝国》。开始她和我有着一样的忧虑,而她爱上了《黑客帝国》

我想她爱《黑客帝国》是因为那很特殊：庞大，有力，“技术”的电影，充满视觉冲击，从不放弃内在的联系（科幻小说家要求SF作品有内在联系），最重要的是，有一颗好的心。

就像我说的，《黑客帝国》是一部关于意识的电影。告诉我们去变得富于意识，有勇气去搜寻更真实的事物，这就是对其本身（也是最根本）的回报。当Morpheus给Neo选择药片，而Neo选择了（不知道这药片将把他带往何处，就和观众一样）意识，从事于比《星球大战》所展现的任何价值都更为基本的探索。

《黑客帝国》的最终目标不是力量，而是真实。当电影中那个犹大似的人物背叛了英雄们，他是为了回到幻觉和否定，那个Neo试图逃离和战胜的现实.。

美国观众在用基督教符号来翻译这部电影，把Neo看作耶稣似的人物，但是我想更广阔地看待他：一个真实的英雄。我通常不喜欢用“英雄”这个称号，但是这次例外：基努演的Neo绝对是我最喜欢的科幻英雄。

Afterword

William Gibson
[[[Neuromancer, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties]]]

I was afraid to see this movie. I was afraid because it was very popular, and friends told me it was very similar to my own work, and because it stars Keanu Reeves, who had starred in a film I had written. I was afraid that I would be jealous, or that I would resent the film’s creators, or simply unhappy. I had seen copies of the screenplay, and hadn’t thought they promised a great deal, and Hollywood has generally done a very poor job around the theme of virtual reality.

The film had been in release, in America, for several weeks.

When I finally saw it, I only saw it because I found myself alone in an ocean hotel suite, in Santa Monica, and it was dark and cold and raining. My very good friend Roger came and rescued me, and insisted that I would like THE MATRIX. He dragged me out into the rain and his old VW Rabbit.

I knew then I would like THE MATRIX.

I liked it immediately, and liked it even more as the story unfolded. I felt a sense of excitement the hadn’t felt, watching a science fiction movie, in a very long time. The cynic in me kept waiting to be disappointed; waiting for the wrong move, the shabby explanation, the descent into the mass that Hollywood usually manages to make of a movie like this. It never came, and when Neo soars at the end of the film, I went with him, in an innocent delight that I hadn’t felt for quite a long time.

When I returned to Vancouver, I immediately took my 15-year-old daughter to see The Matrix. She had exactly the same misgivings. She loved it.

She loved it, I think, because it’s something very special: a big, muscular, “effects” movie that’s wildly generous with visual thrills, manages never to quit making sense (in the way an SF writer must demand that SF make sense), and, most important of all, has a good heart.

As I interpret it, The Matrix is a film about becoming conscious. It tells us that to become more conscious, to have the courage to seek that which is more real, is its own (and ultimately the greatest) reward. When Morpheus offers Neo the choice of the two pills, and Neo chooses (without knowing where it will take him, as indeed we never do) consciousness, we embark on a quest more primal than anything offered by STAR WARS.

The ultimate goal in THE MATRIX is not the Force but the Real. When the film’s Judas-figure betrayed the heroes, he does so in order to be returned to illusion and denial, the false reality that Neo struggles to escape and overthrow.

American reviewers have interpreted this in Christian terms, seeing Neo as a Christ figure, but I prefer to see in him something more universal: a hero of the Real. I usually have a certain amount of trouble with the very idea of a hero, but in this case no: Keanu’s Neo is my favorite-ever science fiction hero, absolutely.

William Gibson. 1999