Minute 14: “They’re coming for you, Neo.”

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 to The Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss The Matrix Minute, no, The Matrix, one minute at a time. You're not worthy. Are we keeping that? Yes. You're not worthy. I'm not worthy. You knew it. Okay, well, welcome to another episode. I am Phil, and when I was 13, I waited to buy The Matrix Trilogy for almost three years on DVD because I knew there would be a box set someday. My name is Jake. I'm actually Jacob, but I go by Jake. Nice fact. Yeah. I bought The Matrix Trilogy for £17 on sale. It was great. It was the nice, glittery... Did it have that giant... Neo statue?

0:40No, those raiding guys in the UK. What? No, it was a nice little package with the... No, no, no, but the raiding board in the UK has these giant symbols they put on... Oh, the stop sign symbols? They're not terrible compared to the European Union ones. You know those giant ones? Anyway. I have no idea what you're talking about. That is a lovely... Would you steal a call? Pack you bought. Classic. Anyway, this is Minute 14. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome. Welcome. We welcome you. With arms wide open. With arms wide open. Let's get to the chase. So, this is what happens in Minute 14. A FedEx man gives Neo a slim paper package.

1:21It's the legendary Nokia cellular phone. The phone immediately rings once it's in its hands. It's Morpheus. He finally made contact. He tells Neo that they've run out of time, and that someone's coming for him. The minute ends as Neo stands up to see who it is, as per Morpheus' instructions. Dun, dun, dun. Yes, what is this? What is this empty desk that Neo dwells in? But I would like to hear your theories first. Well, first of all, he just arrived, and he sat down, and didn't even turn on the computer. He's just like... Yeah, but what's he doing for like 30 seconds just standing there looking down at the wall? Like, at his desk. That's okay. He just narrowly avoided losing his job.

2:02Someone's going to pay for those ergonomic keyboards, my friend, and those discs. You know what I mean? I do that. It's fine. My theory is that he doesn't care about the job. I think that he's just thinking about this Matrix business. That is true. I think he's having existential crises sitting down at his desk going like, this is some kind of turning point. And I don't even think he knows what the turning point is, but he's feeling something changing in his life. And also, he's in love with a woman in latex that talked to him in a sexy club with Rob Zombie playing. She's so poetic. We just talked, and she just told me these, you know... The Matrix. These prose, beautiful prose.

2:43So yeah, I mean, that's my theory. Is it? Is it? What else can we cover in this shot? Notice the lamp is wiggling as he's opening the thing. Well, I was going to say, like... Bob's afraid of thunder. That's what's happening. Okay, so Neo's like stupid office desk. So there's nothing personal in his office desk at all. It's just a regular, very clean. It's like it's his first day on the job. Nothing worth mentioning at all. The only thing that's worth mentioning is that he's a cog in the system. He is a drone. Yes. His office is so clean. It's like, yeah, there's no paperwork.

3:25There's no personal decorations. There's not even a little, you know, find out who Trinity is. Like, where's the picture of Choi? Yeah. We're his best buddy. My best buds. To be fair, I work in this company for five years. This is pretty much what my desk looks like. I don't have anything personal on it. Nothing. But do some people do bring things? But he doesn't even have a mouse pad. Do some people bring things or no? Do other people? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Their desks are plastered with stuff. Wow. I just like my desk clean. I don't like anything on it. Maybe because you watched The Matrix, it was subconsciously... Yeah, yeah. I just want to be like Neo's office. You got to beat the system. You got to not conform to this and not make it your home.

4:05Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the opposite is Neo's room, which is completely dirty and full of dust. This is where real life happens. The contrast. So he just does coding, I guess. Programming. He's a software programmer. Yeah, I mean, clearly... I mean, just a tester, you know. He has computer skills. Click, click, click, click. Who knows? We don't know. I think he's a software developer, for sure. So... What else is there? Um... He writes, you know, turbo tags. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's talk about this. Let's, let's just talk about the star of this scene. Direct X to... The cell phone. Yeah, the cell phone. Oh, man. So, the cell phone. Well, we've talked about the cell phone before. We talked about it some episodes back.

4:46But we can, you know, give it the proper attention. It's here. No, no, no. Front and center. It's right there. It's here. It's the star of the entire minute. It's staring at me nice. It's the Nokia 8110. Ooh. 8,110. Famous for its sliding dial pad cover. You know, it's the first from Nokia to, or Nokia. Yeah, I say Nokia. I don't know. It's the first from Nokia to have a monochrome graphic LCD screen. And the microphone was at the bottom of the cover. So, when it expanded, it would be closer to the mouth. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. So, that makes ergonomical sense. It came out in 1998, and it weighs 152 grams, and it's 25 millimeters thick. Ooh. Mm. There's no card slot in it, so...

5:29You mean no SIM card? Yeah. So, it's just... Pre-SIM? What is that called? Pretty much. Like CDMA or something like that? And how much do you think this thing cost? Ooh, yeah. Let's see. This price. Okay. Okay. Are we playing the Price is Right for winning, or are we... I have my number. I have my number ready. Yeah, I got a number. What are we doing? Dollars? Dollar? Dollar? Yeah. Dollar, dollar. USD, right? Okay. Uh... 199. 199? Yes. Uh... I was gonna go 350. Ooh. 350, man. If only it was 350. Jake's a lot closer than you are, but he's like $900 above. $900 above? What? Was it $50?

6:09You said 199. Yeah, 199. That's 1,099. No, no, no. 199. $199. Well, then you guys are way... You guys are way too low. What? It costs around $900 to $1,000. What? Wow. Okay, okay. It's like an iPhone. Okay, you know. Are you serious? I mean, it has to slide down a door, Jacob. And you're thinking that, you know, these... Oh, the new Apple 8 that's coming out. The Apple... Uh... Iwatch. What am I talking about? The Apple iPhone 8. The Apple 8. The Apple 8. Yeah, the iTelephone. You thought that was gonna be expensive, but look at this. These things were expensive. And this was 90s money, too. So... Dude, Morpheus spared no expenses. We gotta give Neo the best. Can you imagine, like... We have to give Neo the best.

6:50Trinity, I need a phone. And it's like, we don't have that model. Oh! And they have to go to the store. They just kind of... I like the new Nokia. What was it? $199. I like the new Nokia 800 and... On a two-year contract. $8,110. Yes. All the above. Do you want pager abilities? Do you want a... What? Name? No, it's just fine. Name and address? Bill. Bill. Stephenson. Bill. Cypher. Cyphery. Let's put it on Cypher. He's on Mega City. Cypher, you can pay for it. Cypher. Cypher gets his bill. God damn it!

7:30I should have taken the blue bill. See, this is what Morpheus is doing to me. This is what Morpheus is doing to me. Every time. This is what pushed him over the edge. Yeah. That's right. Ridiculous. It looks like a banana. The phone. So it was called the banana phone. Or we could say Katana. It looks like a Katana. And now here comes the sad truth. Okay. Why would you want to get this phone? What do you mean? Top of the line. What's the primary function? Top of the line. How would you feel in your hand? I feel great. Ergonomically, when you turn it on, how do you feel? Awesome? Awesome. Why? Because it's better than... Remember the ones in the 90s? The huge ones? Like the bricks? Yeah, the bricks. What if he gave them that? Well, I have to say, guys, I liked, personally, flip phones. I like them.

8:11Right. Because you go... Like the razors and stuff. Right? A little icon. Not icon. A little mini screen, mini display for the time, and then flip it up. Right, right. And you feel great when you hang up. True. You clasp it down. But here's the sad truth. The sad truth is the prop phone was actually modified, and the real one, it doesn't have a spring-loaded cover. Well, that's not worth $900. No, not at all. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So it was just like slowly... Yes. So you slide yourself out manually. Yes. You slide it yourself with your thumb. That makes sense. No, it doesn't. It's horrible. This was custom-made. The prop people, they put that spring load so it can go... Look how awesome it is. You don't want to get your finger snapped, man. By the way, it's really weird. Why do Americans...

8:52This is a strange thing. When flip phones were very popular, I would say, like 2004 until the iPhone came out. Yeah. They never took off in Europe. It was only in America. I also wonder this. Everyone in America came out with those green... Those silver, gray little flip phones. No one in Europe had them. Like the Razer, the Motorola Razer, and these kinds of things. I don't know why I picked up. I have no clue. I guess it was like the flipping. Americans love to flip things off. They just love to flip things. I don't know. They just want spring-loaded shit and just go flip, flip, flip, flip. Yep. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Probably. Well, you can buy it on eBay if you want. Tell us. Why do Americans... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us the... Why must they do the silver flip phone? What was the Razer all about? My theory would be which is the marketing thing where companies maybe just saw... Yeah.

9:32Why would it... Yeah. It has to be a reason why it sold better. Yeah. Anyway. Everyone's just like the big screen ones, you know, in Europe. The candy bar phones? By the time you Americans running around with flippy phones with like tiny screens, we had like humongous, you know, proto-spar phones. Sony Ericsson's. Sony Ericsson's and LG's and... Graphics. We had graphics and color screens. Graphics and play video games. I love that stuff. Photos. I don't know. Let's find out. It's on eBay. You can get it for $150 to $250 on eBay. I can get it for $20. Yeah, I know. But those are all used too. Is there a spring-loaded one? Can you modify our own? You could modify your own. Yeah, I guess that's a possibility. Can you make it like super schlink?

10:13Now that we talked about that wonderful phone. It shoots out. Like it goes off the phone. You have to replace it every time. That was Morpheus's idea for some weapons. So like, you know, so whenever an agent catches them, their last line of defense is, I need to make a phone call, please. You mean I can dodge phones? I like how the editor makes him make a phone call. Oh, of course. Make a phone call. So let's go back to the scene since we've talked about that wonderful phone. So who's the actor for the FedEx man? I have no idea. What do you mean? We just talked about Mr. Reinhardt. Yeah, but Mr. Reinhardt actually had his face shown in the movie. This guy's face. This guy's half-faced. This guy's great. Look at him. Take him so seriously. He said, have a nice day. Look at Nio. He looks so angry at him. He's like, you have a nice day.

10:53Okay, so Morpheus calls. Well, I wanted to say like the framing of this is lots of wides in this, showing you the way that Nio is still boxed in. He's still not free. His room is a box. His cubicle is a box. He's just a lonely little man in the corner with no view of the outside world just yet. You know? That's true. He hasn't had his mind freed. But he is distracted. And that's why he wasn't able to even make it to work on time. Because something distracted from this perfect, seamless banality of his existence. Yeah. And he gets the phone, right?

11:34He gets this phone in the FedEx packet. And the FedEx man is just, have a nice day. And why is Nio reacting this way? Nio looks so sad. Look at Nio. That's what I wanted to talk about. Why is Nio acting? Is that freaked out? Yeah, he's freaked out when he says, have a nice day. Huh? And there's that lingering shot of him just looking at the FedEx guy go away. I don't understand. Why don't you understand? Like, I wouldn't be like, that's the weirdest thing. Why does he just say, have a nice day? That's what they normally do, right? I don't notice him. I don't think he's weirded out by having a nice day. I don't think he just gets anything. No one loves Nio. Did you see his apartment? Does that look like a man who has friends and loved ones? Well, I mean. That's a sad old man. Choi loves him. Sad young man. Choi loves him. Choi loves him.

12:14Yeah, sure. My hacker friend. I don't think Choi comes to him just to hang out. He just goes for the minisks. Yeah. So, he opens the thing. It's just like everyone mistakes him for Nio. It's not Nio. It's Nio. It's Tom. Tom. Tommy boy. Tommy boy. Tommy what? So, Nio opens the package. Sorry, what's his middle name? Did I ask his before? Thomas A. Anderson. I don't know what an A stands for. No, just an A initial? Yeah. Adam. We've got to think of something. Thomas Adam Anderson. Oh, yes. The first human. The first man. The one. Exactly. The real human. That's what it is, probably. Oh, no. It's just the initial. Right. So, he takes his phone.

12:55Like, he opens the package and the phone comes out. He looks at it just for a second. And then, boom! This wonderful shot from below shows up and it just rack focuses onto the phone and just goes. And our water phone friend makes a comeback and he just makes his little premiere appearance. Thomas Arnold Anderson. It's so shocking. I was just talking about the shot right now. No, I'm listening to you. I'm just joking. He gets that. And it just starts ringing at the beginning. So, how did you feel when you watched the movie and that phone rang? I was just, ooh, creepy, creepy, creepy. What's going on? No, it wasn't. It's kind of weird. No, I kind of feel like seeing the movies maybe. I don't know. Yeah. What would you expect? Like, it's going to, like, what? Explode?

13:35No, it's a phone. It's going to ring. Even at that age, I think that I had seen other movies where important phone calls happen to main characters. Okay, yeah, yeah. I guess that makes sense. It's very shocking to Neo. I mean, it's so shocking that it breaks the 180 rule. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, let's talk about that. He picks it up and he gets the call from Morpheus. And then the camera goes from a medium close to super close up and swings from one angle to another. And it's so cool. Like, he's standing there upright like this. Hello? And then... So, they broke the rule because Neo turned. Is that right? Well, they just moved the angle completely from one direction to another one. But because you can actually see it happening, it's perfectly fine and readable.

14:16And he goes from the light to the darkness. To the darkness of the unknown. Uncertainty. And Morpheus finally reveals himself and calls him directly. What do you think is happening? After months of searching for Morpheus, Neo gets this unexpected call. How does this feel to Neo? How? How do you feel after searching for him for so long and you hear his voice? How does he even know how it sounds like? Did they get... Why does he trust him so much? That's the other thing. A man calls him on the phone and he's like, it's you. Well, I mean, we've talked about this before. I mean, Neo hangs out in chat rooms and trusts those guys. So, what's the difference between Hong Kong? He's always trusting people that are outside of this monotonized system.

14:58I don't think you necessarily trust him, but I think that he's obviously open to seeing who this guy is because he obviously knows a lot about what he's doing and he probably read about him a lot. Yeah, Keanu's earring holes kind of bug me when you see the clothes. He's got a bunch of holes, a little bit of acne from the teenage hoods in the shop. The remnants. You know, he was a rebel. What I wanted to say was that, following the story, so here what's happening is that Morpheus had planned to ease Neo in even further to meet up and to casually and calmly offer him the choice, right? But obviously time is pressing and is against them. And that's what he's obviously saying here is that the agent found him before they obviously

15:41wanted them to. So, that's the problem in this scene. Well, here's the thing. If I were Morpheus and I believed he was the one, why fiddle fart around? It's like, if he's the one, unplug the bastard and let him deal with it, you know? You know what I mean? It depends how benevolent you are. Well, you know how later on he says, I must apologize. We have a rule about unplugging people and they don't accept the system. Yeah, but if he believes he's the one, you know? Well, here's the thing. Just plug it. A central theme in the Matrix is choice. And I think that this is a prime example of Morpheus giving Neo a free choice. That means he does not want Neo to be the one if he doesn't want to be the one because

16:23he wants to give him an actual ability to choose. Because that is distinguishing their world from the Matrix, which has nothing to do with choice. In this movie, at least. That's how I was in charge. That's true. So he's running out of time and he's like, sorry, we're going to have to call. Plus, if Neo can't discover for himself. Tim's method was Morpheus and the gang come in with a helicopter and start gunning down everybody in the office. Beat him up. And then coming in and rescuing Neo. And they say, Neo the one. He's like, what's that mean? Never mind. There's no time. Come on. You read it on the chat rooms. He knows a bit. Yeah, but it's like, here, put this phone next to your ear. This is your own. No, wait. No, he can't do that yet. Take this pill.

17:05I mean, there's no backtracker in him yet. Just unplug them, you know? I mean, like, here's the thing. Like, yeah, sure. Morpheus is, you know, he's fulfilling the role of the zealot, the wise man, the guide. The wise mentor. The Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Obi-Wan Kenobi. And then, you know, there's a certain process you got to go through. Yeah. But honestly, if I was Morpheus, I would be just like, so here I am. You saw the picture of me, you know? Let's just do this. Unpluggy, pluggy. Very dramatic. And let's go. Zion's waiting. Well, you know. There's a party going on. What's Zion? What's Zion? You'll find out. Come on. Just come on. Just come on. Aren't you bored of your job?

17:45Aren't you bored of? What's the catch? I guess so. No catch. No catch. I mean, you know. Just take this pill. It won't kill you. Yeah. So there's some trivia as well. There's this guy called Phil Oosterhaus who used to be the assistant for the Wachowskis for Matrix 1, 2, and 3. And as a result, he wrote a lot of wonderful little notes, behind-the-scenes trivias, because he's been through all the setups and scenes and shoot days. And I was reading the Art of the Matrix book, and in that book, he has a lot of stuff to talk about. So I'm going to, occasionally, when we talk about these minutes, I'm going to go and talk about what he was saying. And in this scene in particular, he said that this was day one.

18:30This was the first shooting day. Oh, wow. Okay. You know, no one knew how it'll do, and all of the WB representatives were there to make sure that the directors knew what they were doing. So everybody was under total control. Stage fright was, you know, imminent. Everyone was nervous, but Wachowskis got everything done on time, and they got all their shots. That's awesome. I think there's actually some footage in the making of a DVD. Yeah, let's talk. And they're really chillaxed, man. Yeah, that's good. That's good. And they were meeting one of the Steadicam operators. Save us! Yeah, he's like, you're the man. Yeah. It's great. So anyway, all I have to say about this minute is that most of it is, once he gets the call,

19:15turns into close-ups of Neo's face, seeing the intensity in his facial expressions. Beautiful eyes. Those big, pretty eyes. And, yeah. I think that's it. Metacortex is a company. Remember that website? There's an old website that they actually uploaded back when Matrix 1 and 2 and 3 were pretty popular, and it was a fake Metacortex website. If you want to check it out, here's a link to it. Okay. I don't know how we're going to... Ba-bing! I guess on our Facebook page, we're going to be able to link to everybody else. I mean, there can be show notes. Post notes. The show notes. Yeah. So we can link things up there. Look how beautiful it is. Yeah, we can link things up there. I think that would help. I can read some of it for the lazy people.

19:56Give us some bits. Metacortex. Metacortex is the world's foremost software and information systems development company, specializing in business solutions, security solutions, home applications, and computer gaming. Everything. You can find the Metacortex brand on over 80% of computer software worldwide. Currently, Metacortex has regional headquarters in 22 countries and employs over 250,000 people worldwide. Far-reaching innovation is our goal, along with bringing the 6 billion inhabitants of our small planet together. That's Metacortex, serving you in the 21st century. Stephen Walsh.

20:38He's the CEO. Look at him. He's a machine. He's a machine. Now. Now. And this was minute 14, I think. Yes, sir. You're correct. Yay, I'm right. Woo-hoo! Minute 14 was the minute. That's it. Wonderful films. It was a minute. Thorough minute. It's the call to action. The call to action in this hero's journey. Yep. For me. A literal call to action. Oh! Excellent. That is so true. I'm Phil. I'm Phil. You can reach me at Phil Draggish on Twitter. And please, please be a darling. And post a comment on the iTunes and give us some great ratings. And if you write a review, I'll be sure to check it out and call you out on it.

21:22Call you out. Phil will fly to you and kiss you gently on your forehead for that. So you can follow me at Twitter, at Jake Draggish. And if you really want to, you can always send me that Nokia. But, if you could, also spring load it. Yeah, because that's the only reason you want one. Yeah. Yeah, there's no other reason. Banana phones. Mmm, I'm Tim. I am on Twitter. You will look for me. I will not tell you the secrets. You must search. Like Neo, search for Morpheus. You must search. That's right. That's right. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you very much. Hopefully next time we'll be able to talk about who it is that Morpheus tells him to look up and see over the cubicle wall.

22:07Who's searching for them? It's his love, the woman in the red dress. And we'll catch you next time. Matrix, man. Okay. Philip got possessed. How's that? Thank you.