I had the same thought. Probably because I read Stanislaw Lem's "The Futurological Congress", where the onion effect is taken to an absurd level. The concept there is that the govornment realized that spraying hallucinogens on a rioting mob so they think there are tanks attacking is cheaper than real tanks.

I think you are right, though - they don't have the guts any more than Lucas has the guts to make Episode III redefine things so the Empire is the good guys. At least not on purpose - a few more annoyingly righteous Jedi...

Did that opening thing with the Matrix green numbers look just like the MCP core in Tron to anyone else?

And did anyone else think "Leia!" when whoever it was said there was one survivor?

I though there was a bit of comic book look to the whole movie. I thought it was on purpose, but maybe they just got cheap on the rendering farms.

I think the pointy little goatee is the Matrix equivalent to the Star Trek (TOS) red shirt.