When Does "The Matrix" (1999) Take Place?
"The Matrix" is a science fiction film written by Lana Wachowski with Lilly Wachowski and released March 31st, 1999.
It takes place on the fictional The Matrix timeline in the year:
We know this because midway through the movie Morpheus says to Neo, “You believe it's the year 1999, when in fact: it's closer to 2199.” In the sequel to this film, “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), a program named The Architect reveals .
2703? 2699? AD
We know this because midway through the movie Morpheus says to Neo, “You believe it's the year 1999, when in fact: it's closer to 2199.” In the sequel to this film, “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), a program named The Architect reveals .
The timeline of the Matrix Universe is fairly unique among the largest franchises because the human characters within its fictional world (diegesis) do not themselves know what year it truly is for the duration of most of the stories.
The very beginning depicts a screen showing a phone call tracing program. As this program boots up, a string of numbers is visible at the top that reads “Call trans opt: received. 2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>”. Presumably, this timestamp means the very next scene takes place at around the same time: February of 1998 AD.
At the end, we see a screen with the same phone call tracing program running. As the program boots up this time, it reads, “Call trans opt: received. 9-18-99 14:32:21 REC:Log>” meaning September of 1999 AD. The scene that follows seems to take place on this date.
HOWEVER, these timestamps clearly refer to time for the characters living within the Matrix (and only those within the Matrix) who accept the false narrative they are presented: that it is still the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Presumably, these characters are killed, their children are presented a reset timeline sometime around 1960 AD, they age naturally until sometime around 2040 AD, on a loop.
This SceenRant article explains timeline of The Matrix universe.
