"Once the machines were done with us, they started digging again. We made a quick pass to look for survivors. only one..."
The pay off might not have been what audiences were hoping for but as a cliffhanger the ending of The Matrix Reloaded really set the stakes high for the concluding part of the trilogy. After a frenzied battle with the sentinels, Morpheus's ship the Nebuchadnezzar has been destroyed, Neo unleashes a unforeseen power and is left unconscious, right next to the possessed Bane. It was a cliffhanger that left the main hero defeated, the series's equivalent of the Millenium Falcon destroyed and - as was quickly learned - the human rebel city of Zion about to be obliterated. This ending and the dramatic highway chase ensured that The Matrix Reloaded wasn't a completely lost cause. It was a cliffhanger The Matrix Revolutions could never really deliver on, however, though the battle at Zion was suitably epic.