Dark City and The Matrix

But they were made in different ways. Matrix is a flashy action movie aimed more at the teen crowd where Dark City is more adult oriented. I like them both but Dark City is easily the better of the two.

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I can explain a little, just by introducing you to the concepts.

There were Seven Heavens, ruled by the Demiurge surrounded by Archons begotten by him, who are the jailers of the souls. "They say," records Epiphanius, "that the soul is the food of the Archons and Powers without which they cannot live ..."

The demiurge (/ˈdɛmiˌɜrdʒ/) is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily thought of as being the same as the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense, because both the demiurge itself plus the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system.

So the demiurge is in essence, a false god that fashions the world in its vision and image. It's name was Yaldabaoth.

In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world after the model of the Ideas, but (in most Neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil, while the non-material world is good. Accordingly, the demiurge is malevolent, as linked to the material world.

Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to (or, at least possibly, the problem or cause that gives rise to)the problem of evil.

In the most radical form of Christian Gnosticism, the Demiurge is the "jealous God" of the Old Testament.

Does that above sound familiar? Have a quick read about The Demiurge, plenty of info on the net. To know the Demiurge, one must know its mother, Sophia. Who created the demiurge without divine consent, and in doing so, had to hide her creation from the The One. The demiurge then believed it to be the only thing in existence, hence, blind to the other super-realities. The word dēmiourgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself. The Animal like himself. His powers are Sophia's, but he has no knowledge of his Mother. None. And so he creates what he believes to be all. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.

To reunite with the Mother. To go beyond the material realm we are trapped in.

In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with that last mentioned, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but their chief, “Yaldabaoth” (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth") comes into still greater prominence.

In the Apocryphon of John c. 120-180 AD, the Demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:

Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas (“fool”), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, "I am God and there is no other God beside me," for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come

What does the Matrix have? The Architect and The Oracle.
What does Dark City have? Now this is a little bit harder, probably because it follows the Gnostic more closely, and Jennifer Connelly's role is not so clearly defined. But she can be considered Sophia, because her betrayal (the affair) causes John's "waking up" to the entrapment by the Strangers. Who not only resemble the Archons, but also the Qliphoth/Qelippot or Kelipot of Kabbalah.

In Gnostic psychology, the noetic science of the Mystery Schools, Archons are an alien force that intrudes subliminally upon the human mind and deviates our intelligence away from its proper and sane applications. They are not what makes us act inhumanely, for we all have the potential to go against our innate humanity, violating the truth in our hearts, but they make us play out inhumane behavior to weird and violent extremes.

Hence, Archons are psycho-spiritual parasites. Yet as offspring of the Aeon Sophia , they are also our cosmic kin.Working through telepathy and suggestion, the Archons attempt to deviate us from our proper course of evolution. Their most successful technique is to use religious ideology to insinuate their way of thinking and, in effect, substitute their mind-set for ours.

The strangers seek to deviate the dark city residents in efforts to locate the human soul, which they need to survive. They seek to become us, to possess what we have which remains unknowable to them. So they seek. John Murdoch stops this from happening by "waking up" and evolving. He becomes like them and tells them they look in the wrong place for the soul. They will never find it. They are Archon. They are Demiurge. They are Matrix. They are Dark City. Zion is what they seek, but they will never possess it. Ever.

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