Minute 19: “…the most dangerous man alive.”

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 first film one micro minute at a time. I'm Phil, I'll be your host, and you can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. Hi, I'm Jake, and I've been Jake throughout this podcast. And I'm Tim, and you're not my host. Yes, I am. Hostess cupcakes, I love those. You will be assimilated. This is Minute 19. And on Minute 19... Well, you'll have to see for yourself. Ready? I mean, wait, I'll just tell you. Smith tells Neo he's guilty of virtually every computer crime they have a law for, and that they need Neo's help to take Morpheus into their custody.

0:41The minute ends as Smith tells him that his colleagues believe he's wasting his time with Neo, but he believes Neo wishes to do the right thing. And that's how it ends. Welcome to Jurassic Park. Okay, so in this minute, Agent Smith takes off his glasses. I think that's one of the most, if not the only most interesting thing in this minute, visually speaking. He takes it off. Is that a sign of that he's more unique to the other agents? Does this mean that he's probably trying to be more personal with someone? It's like taking off his autonomy. And that's a different Matrix movie.

1:21He slowly starts undressing himself. Mr. Anderson. While he's talking, the same stuff. Instead of washing himself. I'll be offering you a clean slate. Okay, I'm sorry. But I'm saying he takes off his glasses, and so that might mean that this is the Smith that is emerging, like the personalized Smith. No, he's not emerging. He's always been there. I think... I mean, like I'm talking about his personality, because he's... Within the plot. Because he says, my colleagues believe I'm wasting my time with this. Yeah, he's done it before. He's taken off his pants before. Shut up! This is... We're slowly seeing this side of Agent Smith. Yeah. I wonder how it's... He always has been like this during his time here.

2:03Right, but his... Yeah, but that's not the one that the other agents are. No. No. They don't know how to take off their glasses. Impossible. No. That's not compute. That's not... Yeah, computer just... Glasses, eyes, one thing. It's like, you know, denied. Accent denied. But is it like he was, you know, programmed this way, but the machines are like, no, let's try this. Or is it like he... No, consciousness. He was... This program was so good at interrogation and everything. It started to pick up these things from humans. And then... That's a good one. Slow by slow, you know, it just... He was the best at it. And then how he figured out, you know, all these human things. So you're saying no self-awareness, but just sort of robotic...

2:43Well, no, they're all self-aware. They have to be self-aware. They're AI. And they're... But I'm saying that, like, I always thought that the idea was that Agent Smith is unique because he... Well, no, this is later... But wait, are the... Like, Smithy and the agents, are there actual AI programs or are there just programs in the Matrix? Because we know the machines are AI. I don't know. As in they, you know, they have their, whatever, limited consciousness of a machine. But do they actually use that technology to create these beings for the Matrix or they're, like, just really highly, you know, programmed? Well, in the sequels, in Revolutions, there's this little child called Sati.

3:25Remember that? Satine? And she... Yeah. You remember Sati? Nope. No, I don't remember Salty. She makes cookies with Oracle. The little child, little Indian child. Remember? Cookies need love. She's like, hello, Neo. Yours seem to be lost. Why are you at the train station, Neo? Oh, the one at the train station? I just don't remember. She's a symbol of the humanity of the machines. And that these machines created another creation, like these two parents, because they love each other, they created an offspring. And this offspring has no purpose. And machines don't jive with that. And this is showing the development of how the machines are turning more into the humans,

4:07like the humans. So I was just thinking maybe the agents here, especially Agent Smith, is one of those more advanced, more conscious. Because you know what happens in Revolutions. He turns into Smith, the terrible. And he's the one thing. Smith, the terrible. Now here's the thing about Smithy. I think Hugo's, enough talking about Hugo, but I think Hugo does an amazing performance. And this scene is basically, he is in the spotlight and does great. But I am, for loss of words, to say anything smart about his performance, I don't know what to say. I am so lost. There's so many great things about it without sounding like a parrot and just saying, oh,

4:47look, look at him moving his hands. And then he does this thing. Do you guys have anything smart to say about this? How did, well, the. I know you say he developed, you know, combining the transatlantic accent, and, you know, Carl Sagan. Yeah. What was his, like, thought process? Was he like, oh, is this a machine? That's why I'm going to do it? Or was he just like, you know, like, oh, I'll just make an interesting character. Do you know? Robotic man. Robotic man? I have no clue. Yeah, I think, well, we'd have to get Hugo here. Yeah, we'd have to get Hugo here. Hugo. Let's hit Hugo on Twitter. I think he's robotic man and Twitter. My best guess is that Hugo probably, while reading the script, also kind of realized the character and that he's not completely robotic.

5:28But he's also showing some signs of being, showing signs of frustration. Have you spelled his last name? W-E-A-V-I-N-G. We're having. Mm, he does. It's not confirmed, though. No, attribute. Oh, that's bullshit. Hugo Weaving, confirmed gay. What? What do you mean confirmed? He doesn't have a confirmed Twitter account. Oh. No, no, no, he wouldn't. He's 50. We'd get him on the podcast. Oh, there's plenty of old people. Yeah. Like, uh. Carl Sagan. Someone's really old and we're on Twitter. Nope. Can't hit him on Twitter. Oh, well. Unreachable. Yeah, I don't have anything intelligent to say, other than I think that, uh. He's very good. It's just that I'm wondering about when he's saying, like, he's guilty of every computer

6:08crime he has a law for. I mean, yeah. Just every computer crime? No, I think he's, he's, you know, it's the whole thing of being in trouble. He knows, he knows how to be poetic, you know. He knows how to exaggerate these things. Yeah. And he's just trying to scare Neo because his plan was obviously for Neo to get scared. And then Neo would be like, oh, yeah, Morpheus, I'll give you all the everything. Oh. Just keep my life back. Because if it was the other agents, they'll just start listing it. You have committed this crime in 1993 at the stage of this computer. With your doom land party. Yes. And just goes through it. And it's just, just Neo just like wants to die. It's like, shut up. Shut up. In 1992, you falsely entered your birthday on the website, triplex.com.

6:49Yes. Which has put into our database. Okay. In 1993, you went to Budweiser's website. Yes. Falsely put in your database. Well, yeah, all I can say is like, he's just trying to convince Neo to. Yeah, I'm telling you, man. Agent Smith is really hoping that Neo is just scared, confused, frightened. He'll just get him to get the information he wants. But I just, I'm just, I just think that there's just one sense of, you know, Smith working that, not like a normal agent. Yeah. Taking his glasses off in the past episode. The question is, what information does he want? That was my question always. Telling him where Morpheus is.

7:29Oh, yeah. That's it. He wants Captain Morpheus. He wants the keys. I guess. He also talks about Morpheus, how bad he is. The worst. He's a terrorist. The terrorist. Most dangerous man alive. That's right. Bring in known terrorists to justice. Exactly. But what did he do? Well, he's running around London. Yeah. Heathrow. I always think, I'm always imagining him with a sword and just swiping around. Really? Yeah. No, I imagine him like, you know, sending crappy digital video, quick time files to people. You know, like. Oh, no, he's hacking the, like, you know, the TVs there and it's for the commercial. It's like, hello. Wake up, people. You are all sheep. Yeah, wake up, sheeple. You're all sheeple.

8:09No, he's not doing secret stuff in the background. What else can we say about this? Well, we can say that, um. That's really it, man. Neo just listens the entire time. It's such a great scene, but I have nothing to say. Me neither. I didn't prepare. There are no cameras in his glasses. It's just a shot, reverse shot here. It's just. They should have broken the 360 thing. 180. Oh, they could have. It could have been fun. Just break it all the time. One has a future. One does not. Every time you see Neo in a, like, a medium shot, you can see one of the Agent Smith's hands. It's so old and weird and creepy. We should have broken it. Well, thanks. Look at it. It's like a little, little old man. Wait, who is? The old Agent Smith?

8:50No, it's Smith. The other agent. Oh, the other agent. What's wrong with his hand? It's so old. So, if he had long nails, that'd be even, like, worse. Just, like, a little nail polish on it. No, if he had long fingernails, you'd be like, oh. Oh, now it's done. I'm not even turning this podcast around. You wouldn't even look at that. No. None of that nastiness. Oh, fingernails. So, Neo literally doesn't say us a word. Yeah, he's, how he's unable to speak. No, I don't know, man. You know what we should do? We should, like, take this and we should just cut just Neo in one long take. Just looking. Just his reactions. By the way, Philip, you need to tell us these secret things when the camera cuts back and

9:34it's a different day of shooting. Can you tell us those, Philip? How many days of shooting has happening? Oh, yeah, there's a good one. There's a good one. There's a good one coming up when we're going to meet Morpheus. Morpheus. Because, you know, Tim, like, sometimes there's, like, a shot of someone, right? Yeah. Cuts back and it cuts back to the reaction shot and it's a totally different day of shooting. Like, even, like, we just saw the two episodes back, we saw, you know, his hair was completely different. Yes, yes, yes. You can clearly see it's another day of shooting. You mean the one with Gandalf? Gandalf is a classic. That's a classic one. Oh, we should send you if we could. Those are, like, the good ones are the reshoots and the bad one is the one they filmed in production, I think. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, the reshoot's better. I think the reshoot is better than the crappy.

10:15Maybe the crappy one was the reshoot. Who knows? Because isn't it also Aragorn at the end of the King? He's like, crappy beard, good beard. Oh, yeah, no, no, no. I think the crappy beard was, like, wide shots. Yeah. You know? Did you see the crappy beard, Tim? No, you'll have to send it to me. Oh, man. So he didn't, like, he didn't have a full beard when they were filming the, you know, the coronation. And his fake beard is so embarrassing. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. And then when they did reshoots, he was able to have time to film a real beard. And they got the close-ups of the real beard.

10:55And oh, it's like dying and living. Anyway, that's a nice little preview. Was this all for the podcast? I don't even know. This is for the podcast. We're still doing it. And that's about it. This is minute, whatever. I don't remember. 19, I think. Nope. This is 19. Yes. Woo! I'm right again. Welcome. I mean, goodbye. Thank you, real. Minute 19. That's cool. Yep. I apologize for this episode. It was very good. Yeah, we didn't have anything to say. We didn't have anything to say. That's okay, right? Next episode. You know what we should do? If you have nothing to say, we should make the episode three minutes. That's what one guy did. Really? I remember. One of the hilarious people. Nothing to say. This, this, and that. Bye-bye. Just have the intro, and then that's it.

11:38Well, thank you for listening. Thank you, indeed. And hopefully, please, please give us some feedback. I'd love that. After every episode, just Phil. I'd love that. Please pleading. I'd love some feedback. And yeah, go to the Facebook. Go to me on Twitter. It's PhilDragish. Get me on Twitter. Get me. No, you can find me on Twitter. Hit me up. Buy me on Twitter. Yeah, baby. I'd love you.