Minute 102: “Ka-Cha! Ka-Cha!”

Transcript

Transcribed automatically from the audio, and imperfect for it — names and punchlines suffer worst. Useful for finding a moment, not for quoting one.

0:00Welcome back to the Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss the first film one minute at a time because I just love this movie. It's a good movie, man. Hi, I'm Phil and today is a wonderful day because we have the lobby scene and it's the moment you've been waiting for. By the way, happy birthday. Yeah, yeah. Hey, shh, quiet. We're not supposed to... We're revealing secrets. We're revealing the recordings of you. Again, we're revealing what we're recording. It's Phil's birthday. And someone's laughing and it's our guest, special guest, Crystal Beth. I'm here. Welcome. Welcome. Woo.

0:40Oh my God, thank you for having me this lovely day. You're totally welcome. Indeed. Thank you for coming on the show. Of course. Brilliant. It's really great to have Crystal Beth with us. Wait, well, but Tim, Tim's also here, right? Oh, and Tim's here too. Why am I guessing? But it's really great. And Tim. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm here, I'm here. Also, this is another revealment of things. This is another rare occasion of recording at daylight. It's so strange. Every time we record at daylight, it doesn't feel Matrix-like. It feels like, I don't know, it doesn't feel right. Matrix is at night. It feels like it's weird. Well, it's night here, so you do have... Or well, it's not night. It's day, but dark day. Early day, dark, what? Dawn day.

1:20Dawn day. I don't know if... Should we mention that my brain hasn't started working yet? That it's very, very early for me? Let's just say that at the top. That way people don't judge me, because I'm going to be stupid. Well, I would hope our audience is non-judgmental. Yeah. They have to listen to us idiots all the time, so it's okay. Yeah, that's true. We're kind of... Yeah, we're kind of dumb. No matter what, you'll always be smarter than us. Exactly. So don't worry about that. Yeah. Well, since we have Crystal with us... Finally. I can't believe it. I'm going to have to ask the important question here, and that is, how were you introduced

2:02to The Matrix? I saw it, as I saw most movies, in the theater with my dad. Yeah. And I was like, this is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me, and I just wanted to be in The Matrix for my whole life. I was like, this is the coolest thing. Or I guess, like, out of The Matrix. I wanted to be Neo. Yeah. I was like, this is the coolest movie I've ever seen. And I watched it a thousand million times. So many times that there was one point where the only time my mom ever believed that I was ever sick, and she actually told me to stay home from school because she was like, wow,

2:45you're sick, was one day I was watching The Matrix at home, and I fell asleep halfway through it. And my mom was like, nope, she's sick. She never falls asleep. Number one, never falls asleep halfway through a movie ever, but especially not The Matrix. So she was like, go to bed, and you don't have to go to school tomorrow. And I was like, thank you, because I actually was very sick. But The Matrix was the one reason why my mom believed that I was actually sick. That's really great. That's awesome. Yeah, you watched The Matrix a bunch of times, and what was it? A thousand million? A thousand million. That's pretty good. A thousand million. Exactly. That's a good number, yeah.

3:25Yeah, and I actually, I hadn't watched it in years. Like, I feel like before college, I haven't watched it again until I was watching it for this podcast, and I was like, oh my god, this is such a good movie. Right? It holds up. It holds up. Incredibly. That's what we've noticed when we were actually going through all the minutes and discussing the different aspects of it. It's very layered, and I've heard a few people saying that, oh no, no, it's really 90s, and of course it has some of that in it, but I think overall this thing is... Barely. Yeah, see? Barely, exactly. That's what I was going to say. Because it is a film of world building, and it stands on its own because of the way that

4:10they constructed this fictional universe. It looks like it could have been made today. Right? Even the visual effects. I was like, how do they still look good? Yeah, that bullet-time. It's really innovative, and it beat Star Wars Episode I. Yeah. The Academy of War. The Academy. That's right. For the visual effects. Star Wars is nominated? It's always nominated. Right. It hasn't won since the original. It is always nominated. They're like, oh God, here you go. Right? And pretty soon, everything in the categories are going to be Star Wars, because that's literally the only movies that are being made now. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's so true. You know, we'll find out in a couple of years, it'll be Han Solo 3. Oh yeah, of course. Nominated. What are you talking about?

4:51Luke, who's talking Han Solo? Maybe Han Solo? Just like a toddler? They could make alternate... Boogaloo? Yes. Electric Boogaloo. I'm Han Solo. I'm Han Solo. Okay. Two. Well, I think that about covers all of it, doesn't it? I think so. Okay, bye. No! Come back! Oh, oh. Oh, okay. Sorry. The shortest minute to date. Where we introduce guests. Well, okay. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, this is minute 102. So that's cool. 102. And this is the lobby scene. Without further ado, I'll tell you what happens.

5:32The military fires. Neo and Trinity fire back and fight off the guards in a really great fight scene. Trinity deals a cool move and Neo does some cool moves. It's so cool. See how it's close? I was close to the description. That's it. It is. It is. This really cool thing happens and it's so cool. What else can you say? It's super cool. You can't say anything else. Yeah, my favorite move is coming up, right? That's it, Phil. We'll find out. I don't know what's your favorite move. It's just shooting and slow-mo and spy break. Yeah, we'll have to watch the dissecting. A lot of spy break. Yeah. Let's start with saying this is the action scene that I think is the most famous one of

6:18the entire film. And I think that this has been the thing that's been parodied and referenced. And I'd say it's like the one scene that you can show a picture of and everybody knows what it's from. It's the matrix. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's been parodied, though. I think it's usually the bullet-time, just like bending over. Oh, the bullet-time. This is more of like they leap at B. You know, it's like it's the lobby scene. This is maybe a reference, but not the scene. Yes, yes, yes. Well, excuse me. Yeah. Get your terms right, buddy. I don't retcon anything. But this scene is magical. I mean, I think, isn't this like one of the first scenes ever that did like such a, like they packed so much in into one action sequence and they had so many original, you

7:01know, the blending of Eastern, Western, Kung Fu, shooting, slow-mo. Yeah. Right? What do you guys think? It's so cool. I just, that's what you can say. Everything happens. It's okay. It's funny because we were talking about this and I, before, used to think that this scene was longer. Like I thought it would like in my mind, like, oh, five, six minutes or like, you know, oh, super long. Oh, yeah, definitely. But it's not. It's super short. Although this minute, out of every Movies by Minutes show I've ever done, this minute feels like the longest minute I've ever watched. Yep. Like when I was watching it the first time, like when you sent me the minutes, I was watching

7:42it and I was like, did somehow they get all the minutes into one thing? And then I looked at it and I was like, oh my gosh, I am only 40 seconds into one minute. It's insane. It's, they get so much in, in such little time. Absolutely. And it's not even like cut really rapidly. It's just like every, you know, couple of seconds. It's not like bam, bam, bam, you know, like what's, what's it called? Oh man. Yeah. And the way it's cut is so nice. It's such a great flow. It has such a wonderful pace to it. I think the intervals of the cut is very like, you know, uh, consistent. Like I think it's every few seconds. It's just like, it never jumps too much. It's, it's very nice. It doesn't, it doesn't pull a, uh, taken two. No. Or taken three when it jumps over the fence.

8:24Do you all think when they were, when they were planning this, um, the sequence, do you think they were what storyboarding it? Or do you think they were like, how did they get the, the, the flow or was it an editing? I don't know. That was something that I always wondered and something I looked into, uh, when I was going to film school because I was always, I was super intrigued about how they got, they were so confident in their action being great that they didn't need to have fast, quick cuts. So I was like, did they write it that way? Like did the, did the, oh, well, I guess they're not brothers anymore. Or the siblings, Wachowski, did they, did they write like verbatim everything? I remember going into the script and looking at it and they, for, you know, three minutes

9:08of movie, they only have one page and they would, um, left it pretty much to the team. Okay. To figure it out, which is so cool and really trusting. And I thought that was so nice to be them to be like, well, we're not going to write it. We're going to talk about it together. And they actually did a lot of storyboarding with the cinematographer and the DP and everything to get everyone's point of view. Cause they also knew that the actors would be able to add their own flair to you. That's awesome. It's so cool. It's so smart. And it didn't know that it pays off. It pays off. It worked so well because I don't know. There's something about the scene that like the flow is so natural.

9:48Like you never ever think about the sequence and you never think about it. You're just watching. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a clip show. Neo and Trinity are so rhythmic. Yes. Yeah. It's obvious. It is like a well choreographed dance that they're doing, even though technically it's improvised and they're just kind of going for it. Yeah. Man though. Isn't she break her toe in this scene? Oh yes. Carrie-Anne, she, um, she practiced like for weeks to get. Let's talk about that. That's the side flip. That's the, that's the wall crawl side flip maneuver. Yeah. It goes on in slow motion as the camera's pulling back and she just kind of does a little. She starts running on the wall, on the side of the wall. And in the middle does a side flip. Mm-hmm.

10:28And lands back on the front. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she practiced with, um, Yen Wuping's guys for weeks to get that wall crawl and, you know, and cartwheel to work. And, um, they were planning on shooting that in one take. So that one take where she starts running on the wall and then does a cartwheel, that whole thing was supposed to be one take as she lands on the, on the ground again. Mm-hmm. Uh, but when they were, when they were rehearsing it on the day, and there's even video footage of that if you watched, uh, a matrix revisited and, oh, she just sprains her ankle. Yeah. That was really painful. Doing stuff like this in those boots. There's a lot of worries going on. And you could also tell that on, on the set, I think that she was more upset about not being

11:08able to continue. Yeah. Yeah. Like everybody. But that's funny because that had nothing to do really with, um, with why it's two takes. Uh, she just kind of, kind of messed up on, like when they were, you know, when they were practicing beforehand, uh, to do the cartwheel, she actually got it down pretty well. But then on the day when they were getting that shot done, just the, the cable, the wires just didn't want to move. And, uh, they had to change it to two takes. It's actually three. We have two takes now. It's three. Three? Yep. It looks great. There's a one, uh, you know, front. She, she does the walk up the wall. Oh, you're right. It is three. Then she does a flip and it cuts midair to the, I think like the first two look amazing.

11:51I think the third one is a bit funny and revealing of the wires because it's a little bit of jolty as she comes down. There's that little like, Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm on my feet. And then she hides away. But, uh, but the first one, the slow motion adds to it. Yeah. Yeah. I never, I never think of it. Like, uh, when I watch it, I don't, I mean, my, my production side brain realizes that, but it also is so matrixy. Yeah. The fact that there's like that stutter stop and she's able to stop herself so fast and readjust and head in a different direction way faster than I ever could. There's like a specific quality to it that you can't quite like super understand, but it works. Yeah. I want to say really quick, um, something about the scene that I always notice is that

12:32this lobby, you can see the digital top in the background. A lot bigger than it actually is. And I think it's probably just testament to how they shot it and how they, how they sequenced it because they're, they're doing so much stuff, but if you really, you know, looked at the whole lobby, all they're doing is just going down the hallway. Yeah. What they're, you know, Neo's going down that side and Trinity is just going down that side. Do they crisscross? They don't really crisscross. They don't. Not at all. They look at the hallway. The thing is that there's no shot of them. Once they split their sides, you just get their perspective and it's very like clip show kind of editing. Like you don't have, you don't see the actual geography. Like there's no shots of what turn back and you see, oh, he's on the right. She's on the left, like kind of establishing where they are.

13:13So, so there's a weird kind of flow to it. Like the editing, like what you said, that you don't actually know where they are until like the very end. That's what I wanted to say. But they do kind of establish this where Neo is going on to the right. Yeah. But you don't kind of connect. Definitely not me when I was a kid watching this. I never knew what was going on. It was like, oh, they're shooting each other for two minutes now. This was happening. Yeah. So speaking of all this, all this firing going on, they took a long time to film this whole scene, obviously. It's very meticulous process. And according to Phil Osterhaus, our...

13:54Inside man. Our inside man. Who we don't know, but know of. We don't know, but know of extensively, especially like his notes for this was that he was the assistant to the Wachowskis when they were filming this. And the special effects supervisors built around a hundred extra pillars and walls for this entire sequence. What does that mean? So there was a hundred replacement walls. That's what I wanted to ask about. And pillars to be used. That's a lot of replacements. And they used over half. And this is a set, right? This whole thing's a set, right? That's economical, yeah. Oh, it's, yeah, it's totally a set in the warehouse. So I wanted to ask you all is like, when, you know, these pillars got destroyed and

14:39stuff like that, do they have to like stop and then reset and then clean up? You want to know? You want to know? Yes. Yes, please. Took about two hours each time to reset. That's okay. My goodness. Damn, no thanks. No pressure at all. But, so yeah, so... Maybe that's another reason why the geography is not set because you don't have a lot of freedom. You have to reset every time. So, you know, a lot of the shots were close up and everything. So you don't actually know what's the, you know, like the stage, the set, like how destroyed it is. So that's why, you know, the editing maybe is like that as well. So you can use a lot of shots and you don't have to worry about continuity of the, you know, destruction of the pillars. So it all looks different because of the different debris and stuff like that?

15:20Yes, yes, yes, yes. And destruction, you mean? Yeah. And is that, is that, what is that? That's not actually marble and stuff. That's probably styrofoam, right? Phil? Yeah, yeah. Just a colored styrofoam. Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine? That would be a very expensive movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And dangerous. It's going to just fly into everyone's eyes. So, you know, budget meetings. So we have this marble we need for the lobby scene. We need a lot of marble. So I know we said we were going to, you know, pay the DP and the cinematographer and everything, but if you guys could work for free, because like, look at this marble. Just think about it. Just think about it. Just think about the beauty of the marble. Yeah, the hundred replacement marble things. Just get a crane in there. Beep, beep, beep. Put it back there.

16:01So there's a lot of slow motion. I love when Trinity finishes her like cartwheel thing. We're going through this right now. Oh, we're going through this. And she's holding her glasses up a little bit. Like she, there's this one shot where she's just adjusting her glasses and then. Got to look cool. Just steps backwards. That is pretty badass. That's the important thing, you know, it's not like anything else. It's the glasses. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I love it when, and I also love it that Trinity notices this guy stops firing and he's reloading. And then she just goes and kicks him like three times. Yeah. So I love that they only kept one of her hyas in because you can see her clearly saying hya two more times, but that would be so annoying.

16:45That would be, you know, that's similar to like, you know, if that's, you know, like the Star Wars actors, sometimes they do. Yes. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be maybe the equivalent. Yeah. So you guys remember on the beginning of the introduction, we were talking about how we saw the Matrix and that my sister made me write the essay. Right. And one of the points that kind of stolen from her is like, oh, you know, Matrix is just like a commentary on the modern video game, you know, environment of people playing video games. And one of the things that was like always put out like this scene, it's just like, it's like a video game. But thinking about it right now, it actually is because it's a very run and gun approach and it's not like classic action movie, like, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger just standing

17:25there shooting everyone. It's just like, it's right. There's no tactics at all. There's not like, oh, turn to you, go left, you know, get that guy out. There's no communication. It's just like, use all your abilities. Like, it reminds me of like hack and slash video game. It's just like, okay, this move, kill this guy, shoot this guy. It's just like a straight on, like clear the room. That's it. Clear the room and get out. It's amazing. Yeah. They're almost button mashing their life. It's like all the abilities they learned. They just like press it, everything. The, uh, the kick where Trinity kicks the gun. It's the shotgun kick. That's my favorite move of the whole movie. Is the best. That is the best one. That's the best move. Every time I see it, I'm like, oh, so smooth. So cool.

18:05And how hard do you have to kick it? You have to hold a shotgun hard to fire it. Like you have to have a grip on it. How like that would murder my shit. Yeah. Well, she's got shins of steel. She's got matrix infused super power shins. Yep. And, uh, it also has a little bit of a bounce to it too. So it just goes. And then, um, I think she's using her arms to kind of adjust the trajectory. Yeah. Just like a little help. Of the shotgun. That shotgun looks humongous in her hands. Like once, once, once she has it and then she turns to shoot the other guy, it looks like she's holding a cannon pretty much. I don't want to say like that, that to me is like, I always noticed that when she's holding the shotgun, right?

18:46Yeah. Yeah. This is, you always noticed that bit. Cause I think, I don't know. I feel like the shot would have worked better from a different angle or something. I don't know if it's the lens, but it just, it looks so huge. And it does a little bit like out of proportion. It's like unwieldy. Like she's just like trying to. So Trinity's got the best moves in this minute. Yes. Well, you know, Trinity, I think what's cool about her is that her moves are very precise and they're very minimal. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and they always work. Like she knows what she wants. She's been in the matrix longer. She knows what she's doing a little bit more. She's had all that extra training. You're right. Neo's new. He's new. And you're still working out the kinks in his programming. She's just, he just packed a lot of guns.

19:26That's all he did. It's like, I'm covered. I got like eight guns. I'm good. Just guns. But I, I'm starting to notice a little bit geography. So, so the thing that I deciphered is to go right. Neo goes left. Trinity goes right. But all the cops are actually on the right, except a couple of them made it all the way to the end of the lobby for Neo's part. So that's why he's gunning for them. And then Trinity runs into a bunch of guys straight up immediately. She kicks an ass, a couple of them. And then she notices that they're shooting Neo as he's walking on the other side. So that's why she runs to the shotgun guy to protect Neo. I never, I'll notice this, but look at this, like I have it on loop. So I'm watching it like a hundred times just to check it out. So she kind of clears the way, kind of like, you know, gets rid of the guy shooting at Neo

20:07and then he can go run a gun. I see. Okay. So it's truly teamwork. It's truly teamwork. And I, and I love the, I don't even want to call it teamwork. Trinity is taking care of Neo. He's just running like a madman. Trinity help. That is true. And Trinity's like, yeah, you did it. When I was watching it, when I was younger, that was something that I noticed right away and was so obsessed with. Cause I was like, that is so cool that there's this guy who is the lead of the movie, but he would lift, he would die. He would die. If Trinity wasn't there to help him. Cause he had everyone shooting at him and she's like, oh, gotta go save his ass again.

20:48Yeah. And she, uh, she doesn't ask for any thanks. She just does it. Yep. Well, keeps your glasses on. She loves it. She's a murderer. She likes killing. Um. Murder. Murder. Which is, yeah, we were talking about this and we were saying how like, you know, at the beginning of the lobby scene, how when they enter, you know, Neo just straight up kills these cops, right? He doesn't even ask anything. He just kills them all. Straight up. First degree murder. Just straight up. Like. I have some stories about the 1996 group. Well, I just wanted to say that, um, and we were saying how like Trinity, maybe her view is like, you know, Neo, these are just, you know, like she was telling Neo, like, these are just matrix programs. Think of it that way. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just. Teaching Neo how to murder.

21:28That's what Trinity's thinking here. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just to fulfill her bloodlust. She's just coping with it by saying, ah, it's programs. Okay. What did you say? I just wanted to say that the shotguns that, uh, that we were talking about, these very heavy ones, they're called, uh, Frenchy SPAS. Spaz, my friend. That's, that's how I know it from video games. These, uh, the shotguns in Jurassic Park. Isn't the same? With the retractable back thing. Oh, wait a second. Yeah. These don't have the retractable ones. These are just the, yeah. Yeah. What do they think called at the end of a gun? Like the back thing? I don't know. Oh yeah, man. These shotguns were used in the Terminator. You were in Brazil. I have a, a list prepared for the guns in order of appearance in this minute.

22:13Oh, dude. That's better than whatever we have. Go, go, go. Yeah. Unload. Tell us the secrets. So the first one we see at the beginning with Neo is he has a Tubaretta 92Fs in his hand. Classic. And then we get the exact one you're talking about, that shotgun, the, the SPAS, if you will. We see the cop with that. Then we see two different variations of an M16 assault rifle. Oh, okay. Then when. A little old school. A good old assault rifle. You know, the ones that kill everyone. Then the first time he runs out of ammo and grabs two guns, they're Yugoslavs model 61 Scorpions.

22:57There we go, Tim. They're back. What was it? I was just telling you, Tim, because we had a one time, we were talking about quite a few episodes. You know that point where Apoc gives Neo a pistol? Yes. We thought that that was a German gun. It was like a SIG or something. But it turns out it was a Serbian Zastava. So going with that theme, these. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of Balkan guns going on here. Yeah. A lot of Eastern European stuff going on. Yeah. It's cool. Okay, go on. And then the last ones that he has is a micro Uzi. Two micro Uzi's. When Neo runs out of ammo again and takes his third set of guns out.

23:38Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're micro Uzi's, which are actually very hard to shoot with one hand. So accurately. So he's above and beyond. He's going above and beyond. Yeah. He's very fancy. And I think Trinity uses one in a minute previous to this too. I think that's the first gun she's. Yeah. When she shoots the cops, she goes like, she goes gangster style. She puts it on the side. Yep. Yeah. Murderer. She's so cool. But yeah, of course. And as usual, if anyone has ever listened to me on a podcast where I talk about guns, Internet Movie Firearm Database is the best website in the world. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. I'm looking at it now.

24:19It's the best. It's so helpful and cool. And then you can click on all the guns and see what movies it's been in. Yeah. The Beretta has been in so many movies. Oh, I got to see that. I think it's like the famous movie pistol. Yeah. Everyone has it. They love it. They love it. Well, there's a lot more to talk about because pretty much the next minute is almost the same thing with some extra new moves. So maybe we should just move on. Check out. Oh, yeah. From Monday. The kick would come. With the triple kick. Triple kick. Cool. Well, I think that's about it.

25:00Right. For this episode. I think so. What do you think? I just want to keep watching this episode. That's what I want to do. I know. I was like, I can keep watching this minute over and over again. Well, the next one is pretty much the same. Let's check it out. We got some more gun action going on. Thank you so much to Crystal Beth, who actually joined us today. Of course. This fine day. Thank you so much. And for giving a list of these wonderful firearms we got to see getting shot. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Phil. I'm leaving now. Goodbye, Philip. Bye.

25:40Phil's gone. So anyway. I'm just kidding. Okay. Yeah. Let's see you guys on Wednesday. Next episode then? Yeah, I guess. All right. All righty. Bye-bye. Bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.