I have no idea why this came to me the way it did. I was on a car ride and all of a sudden a scene from The Matrix occured to me; When Neo comes to rescue Morpheus, and the other agents come in to see Smith. One agent ( I forget which is which) ask Smith, "What were you doing?"
It suddenly occured to me, the manor he said this. It was so.. human. He was in a state of confusion, curiosity, almost shock. Machines don't get confused, they determine. They are not curious, they just use the information at hand. They should certainly not be shocked, since everything to them is 1 or 0. Maybe I'm overreacting or something, but his conviction seemed totally out of line for an Agent. Granted, Smith was much less system-like in the previous scene where he was 'talking' with Morpheus. But that has a very important role later on. The other agents are just drones through the whole movie. Besides upgrades, they were in no way developed, and because they shouldn't have been, their place in the movie was unfeeling, programmed baddies.
I really don't have much of a conclusion, but it certainly set something off in my head. Somehow I doubt the actor was purposely directed that way, to say the line with that exact conviction. Nobody probably ever even gave it a second though. So am I crazy or what? Just wondering if others have noticed or what they think. Or maybe is this the hidden message, that like in every cheesy movie where one friend is brainwashed to harm another, love or something can break through, agents too could be convinced otherwise? Well, I think I disproved this the last time I was not authorized in an area Keep in mind, I'm not counting Agent Pace That's a whole other issue.
So in case you just want to skip to the bottom: So am I crazy or what? Just wondering if others have noticed or what they think. (For scene/line in question, read paragraph one.)
Agent Brown did seem curious about what Smith might have been doing...
Illyria
You have to have some emotion, its still a movie. Somtimes you just have to sitback and enjoy the show and not analyze ever tiny detail. I know what you mean tho. You could even bring up the fact that the other 2 agents had a genuine look of fear of thier faces after neo destoyed smith. Then they ran to save their own as$.
An agent shouldnt be afraid, but it made for a better scene in the movie.
An Agent can be afraid, and can have Fear. Fear is a derivative of Self-Preservation and that is programmed into most Sentient Programs (Hence why we have exiles, their preservation routine was obviously stronger than the command to return for deletion) and as such can be expressed by Agents just as it can by, say, The Merovingian.
Agents are not soulless, un-emotive, non-entities. They too have personalities and differing responses however these are repressed by their over-riding function and purpose. The two Agents would likely be shocked to discover that Smith had disconnected himself from the Source Comms. as it is likely something an Agent should never do.
It's possibly as simple as Smith acting outside of parameters. This in turn illicits a modicum of 'confusion' on Brown's part. The response; "What were you doing", was just an advanced program saying "Does not compute", rather than the human emotion of confusion.
Not for nothing, but isn't it also possible that certain programs are programmed with x amount of reactions to situations, and a programmed response could contain simulated emotion in the tone of voice and actions? Just because it seems a program says something emotionally, doesn't mean it's geniune emotion. Eh?
When I initially saw this scene where Smith is interrogating Moepheus, I thought nothing of Brown's comment. A few times later I, too, was surprised at how I suddenly realized the tone of emotion/surprise/shock in Brown's voice. I later concluded that he was just referring to the earpiece thing, and although the camera work, general mood of the scene, and Smith suddenly standing up suggest that Brown's comment was directed at Smith's interaction with Morpheus, I think we were just looking at it the wrong way.