They're making a Matrix 5.

[Vahnavoi]

Getting to the architect is treated as the goal of the plot, but once there, it's just...a lot of lecturing. It's not truly a back and forth. The language is not hard to understand. It's padded with large words, and that is, I suppose, part of my criticism, but fundamentally, it's not a satisfying payoff to the journey of getting here. Generally exposition is seeded up front in order to inform the viewer about the nature and stakes of the world and struggle, here, they are delivered after the fact, and there is no struggle.

Of course it's not a satisfying pay-off because it's the middle of the arc. Reloaded and Revolutions were shot together and are, for all intents and purposes, two halves of the same movie. The architect scene is the midpoint revelation that recharacterizes the conflict. This, in fact, follows the extensive form of hero's journey to a fault.

Saying the films are padded or take too long to get here are legitimate criticisms. They didn't have to tell this story with a two-part five hour movie. Saying the architecht scene isn't or doesn't have a story to it continues to be wrong. Saying there is no struggle is especially wrong, since after this is the entirety of Revolutions where Neo, quite visibly, struggles to find a solution since the previous one failed.

They talk for what, seven minutes, and the only consequence is that Neo walks back out, to save Trinity, who would not be trying to save him if he wasn't here to begin with. It is a thread that accomplishes nothing save for providing an opportunity for the scriptwriters to narrate at us, and even that is padded beyond reason. The videos are just empty flash, showing the architect's predictions. They're not actually previous Neos. Neo is the sixth iteration, there's hundreds of monitors.

I already noted they are predictions of this Neo, not the previous ones. The monitors, rather obviously, show alternate reactions Neo could have, including the "this is a load of crap!" reaction that you and other audience members might have, before zooming on the reaction the movie wants to build on. It's a neat bit of visual storytelling that tells us how the Architect thinks, especially in context of what the Oracle says of him later: "that man cam't see beyond any choice". He can predict all possible Neos, but can't tell which one is the real future before it happens.

Does this scene actually carry any more weight than Neo walking through any of the previous doors? Yes, yes, he technically made a decision to walk through the door, but he chose to walk through all the other doors too. The speech itself is pretty pointless.

The last two doors rather obviously present a fork in the road. The Architecht sets up a version of the Trolley Problem (either spare many at the cost of one, or spare one at the cost of many). Neo calls his bluff on allowing him to choose at all and he doubles down. Neo, then, confidently chooses to spare one at the cost of many.

Could they have gotten here with less dialogue? Yes. That doesn't mean there is no point. The whole speech exists to establish that the Architecht is serious and these are the terms Neo has to live by. This becomes extremely obvious if you imagine any alternate conclusion where, say, Neo punches the Architecht and goes on to save Trinity and Zion in one fell swoop. The movie makers deliberately take that option off the table. Revolutions is a direct logical follow-up, and the fact that Neo loses Trinity on the way to his alternate solution adds weight to the Architecht scene as well.