It is well known that Neo's first scene in The Matrix contains the only on-screen appearance of the trilogy's key text: Simulacra and Simulation. Neo opens the volume to reveal the first page of 'On Nihilism', which has been transposed to midway through the book and reversed to appear on the left rather than the right hand side. Across the volume, Jean Baudrillard's key concepts of the hyperreal and the code are repeatedly defined in terms of their destructive effect; both combine to mark the end of reality, truth, chance and choice. The final essay picks up on these arguments to offer a moment in which Baudrillard styles himself as a prophet of the postmodern apocalypse. The Matrix Trilogy takes up Baudrillard's account of the two stages of nihilism: the destruction of appearances and the destruction of meaning, in its presentation of two key characters.