The Superbrawl

"Why Mr. Anderson, why? Why get up? Why keep fighting?

Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?

Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love?

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now, you can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting! Why Mr. Anderson, why?! Why do you persist?!"

"Because I choose to"

"Because I choose to" is essentially the turning point of the film. Throughout the Superbrawl Neo and Smith both know that Smith will win, but Neo continues to fight despite what he's gone through, much to Smith's confusion. The "Why Mr. Anderson" speech is ultimately aimed at discovering the meaning of (human) life, although it's disguised as Smith just trying to find out why Neo keeps fighting, bringing together the trilogy's ideas of causality and purpose. Smith still doesn't understand how human beings can exist without a purpose, he thinks that all emotions are just feeble attempts to justify our existence. If Smith discovered human beings had a certain purpose, he would be able to find out the cause for Neo continuing to fight.

However, in this case there is no cause. Buddhist teachings say that to achieve enlightenment one must first lose all worldly attachments. Neo has lost all attachments. He is completely alone, hundreds of miles from Zion with Trinity dead; he has nothing left to live for. However he keeps on fighting, for no other cause except choice.

You could think of this as "pure choice". Neo is now free from the causal control of the Matrix. He has achieved true enlightenment and perfect free will.

In Reloaded we learnt that the purpose of the One was to learn about human choice, and pass this information onto the machines so they can improve the Matrix, making it more realistic. This time the One has experienced pure choice, if passed onto the machines this could perfect the Matrix completely. This is essential later on.

Even though Neo is soaked, exhausted, battered and bloody, he shows he can still keep fighting with a punch that should have killed Smith. There's no way either of them can win, they can keep fighting. This fight could go on forever without either of them winning.

There's an article on the making of the Superpunch here with original storyboard drawings.