Minute 21: “…whether you want to or not.”

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 minute at a time because The Matrix is a wonderful, beautiful thing, a simulation that is... What? A simulation that covers your eyes into believing in fallacies. I don't know what I'm talking about. What are you talking about? Who's this? Hi, sorry, sorry, sorry. Hey, I'm Phil. Welcome to another... Phil's going insane. Another day, another podcast, even though we don't do this day by day, but you know, whatever. Apparently, Nicolas Cage turned down the part of Neo because of family commitments. No way. Nicky. My name is Jake, and I know something about casting. I think they wanted Sean Connery to play the architect.

0:44Or Morpheus, I don't remember which. Or Morpheus. He said something like it was complicated, didn't like the story or something like that. He didn't understand it. The Matrix is everywhere. There we go. Even now, in this very room, you can feel it when you can turn on your television. I'll pay your taxes. Go to church. Who's that with us? Oh, it's Sean Connery. Sean Connery. I lost my accent. Welcome, Sean. Welcome. What's your opinion on Brexit? It's amazing. That man is still in the Bahamas. He's not going to go back to Scotland. He's chilling like a Bahamas. He waits for Scotland. I've exited myself. Yeah, he's actually waiting for Scotland to come out of the regime of the United Kingdom.

1:28Regime. Of the United Kingdom. So he goes back. Make my own Scotland. Scotland is free. I'm coming back, baby. He won't. I bet if it happens, he'll be like, uh. Did you guys know that Johnny Depp was eyed for Neil? Yes, we talked about that in the beginning. We did? Yes. He would have been like that. Oh, no. It starts to repeat. It's going downhill now. Johnny Depp was talking about doing that, and it's just really, really amazing. It was really great. They should have got Jack White. What is the Matrix? I don't know. I'm telling you. Jack White. Johnny Depp. Who else? Who's Jack White? Jack White the musician. Wait, so who? We're thinking 90-99. 90-90.

2:08Who was like the top star for male actors? Well, Will Smith was. Well, Will Smith was the biggie. Also, by the way, you have to understand that this was started in 1997 or 1998. Yes. So. Seriously, who were the big stars? Wiki, Wiki, Wow. Wiki, Wow. What was the big movies? Okay. Jeff Goldblum from Independence Day, but he wasn't like a big star. No, he was the old guy already. He was the kook. Yeah. He could play Trinity. Cross-dressing Trinity. Ben Affleck. Hmm? Ben Affleck as Neil. So. And then we have Sean Connery as Morpheus. And who did we want to cast still? No, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Agent Smith. Speaking of which, it's his birthday today.

2:50Happy birthday, Arnold. All right, here we go, guys. Happy birthday. Best actors of the 90s. Are you prepared? 70 years old. Yes. Who can be in this film? John Matrix. All right, so. Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks! Tom Hanks is Neil. Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo DiCaprio. He was a young man. Young man. Tom Cruise. He was like a baby. Every time I think of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Matrix now, I'm just thinking of a trench coat that doesn't fit well. Yeah, like skinny little boy. Yes. Brad Pitt? He could be the kid. Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt's doing Fight Club. Keanu Reeves? He could work. Yeah, he's not bad. Johnny Depp.

3:30Yeah, we covered it. Maybe Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. Be more swagger like Neo. See, I was going to say Bruce Willis. That's what I wanted to say. Bruce Willis. Yeah. I bet Frank Ireland would like that. Bruce Willis is Neo? That would be lame. None of these guys could play Neo. Oh, Pierce Brosnan. Bruce Willis would never go through all the karate training. He would be so boring. He would just like. Can't do that, man. What if I just shoot him, man? Just shoot him in the face. So boring. Yeah, just take a shot there. You guys are all too old. Brendan Fraser. Yes. Yes. Brendan Fraser. Perfect. Can you imagine? Like, I think the whole movie would just be. Wonderful. It would be like. Yeah. Corny. Corny. But then again, we would probably think the same thing with Keanu Reeves.

4:13Oh, man. That's true. Right. Maybe. I think Brendan Fraser is a talented actor and it's just too bad that. And I'm not just saying that because he's from Indiana. Doesn't he tend to be cast as sort of like a funny character? Yeah. That's the thing. Did he do a serious? He must have done something. Oops. Yeah. He was in Crash. That's what I remember watching. He was in Crash? I think. Crash Bandicoot the film. No, I'm kidding. Crash. The Oscar winning movie. Oh, the Oscar crap. Yeah. Which is weird. I don't know. I was like younger, so I was like amazed. But then I watched better movies in the same concept and realized that Crash is actually not a good movie. It's pretty random. I think I watched Crash once. Wait, Brendan Fraser? Oh, yeah. He's like the doctor or something like that. I think it's Fraser. Is it Fraser?

4:53I'm sorry. Fraser. I say Fraser. I always say Fraser, but I think it's Fraser. Fraser. Okay. We're usually with Val Kilmer. Yes. Yes. That's what the face. Val Kilmer. Again, it goes back to Val Kilmer. Well, was it? Yeah. That's right. Oh, well. Ludacris was also in Crash, wasn't he? Yeah, it was. Can we talk about the minute? Let's do a couple more. Just a couple more. Wesley Snipes. Hey, what about Trinity? We didn't do Trinity yet. Okay, well. Because we got Brendan Fraser for an EO. Jada Pinkett Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith? What? No, Renee Zellweger. How about Sandra Bullock? Bullock. Sandra Bullock and what? Johnny Depp? No, and Brendan Fraser.

5:34Oh, Brendan Fraser. Okay, that's right. And Agent Smith is Arnold. Here we go. Top 30 female stars of the 1990s. Julia Roberts. Definitely. No! Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan. She's never done something like this. That could work. Yeah, I could see her. Like, dye your hair black, please. That'd be cool. That could work. Yeah. Jodie Foster. Possibly. Don't think that could work. What about Sandra Bullock? She's here. Reese Witherspoon. Yeah, she's used to. Drew Barrymore. She and Keanu could be together again. Where were they from? I am a CINCINNATI Cincinnati. Toyland? What was it called? Yeah, Babes in Toyland. Toyland. The best town in Ohio.

6:14Kim Basinger. Basinger. Batman. Shpatman. Shpatman. Shout out to the Batman Minute. Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp. That's it. Let's do that. Oh, that again. Okay, sounds good. Perfect. I would see Winona maybe as Trinity. Maybe she's a bit... She'd be a little bit confused, Trinity. But she never really looks like someone who's after 20. Oh, like a... Yeah, that's true. You can imagine that tiny woman just karate chopping people and stuff like that. Ah! You never know. Okay, come on. Let's do the Minute. Ha! That's my crow impression. Ha! Never more! Give us the Min.

6:54Okay. Wait, crows don't do that. That's a raven. Thus quoth the raven. Nevermore. Ika waka waka. Okay, sorry. We're going a little crazy. Clive Barker. Clive Barker. Ecto Kid. Comics made by the Wachowskis for Clive Barker. Interesting fact. I was watching a wonderful interview with Wachowskis very recent, 2014. They were talking about how they were rereading their old comics that they wrote called Ecto Kid, which was done in collaboration with Clive Barker. And they said that Ecto Kid is like the Rosetta Stone because you can see the Matrix in it and you can see Cloud Atlas in it and you can see Jupiter. What is the Rosetta Stone? What is it? I'm not familiar with the phone. The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian stone, I think, that contains translations into different

7:38languages. Oh, I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the old... I think it's three languages, I think. I get it. Three languages? And it helped decipher. I said Egyptian. Yeah. Later on, they're like, now we know. All right. So, Neo gives Agent Smith a worried look. Smith simply stares back with unnerved amusement. Suddenly, Neo's mouth starts melting into itself. That's what Smith meant. The spooked Neo is then pinned to the cold metal table and the minute ends as Smith takes out a fancy bugging device which literally turns into a bug and begins to crawl into Neo's naked navel. Neo's naked navel. Tonight on Fox.

8:19Tonight on Fox. All right, ready? Wait, wait, who is that? Is that from Futurama? It's like Professor Farnsworth. It's something like that. Neo's naked navel. Next time I'll do it in Farnsworth. No, it's a narrator. I'll do it next time in Farnsworth voice. You should. Can you do... Can you do... What's his name? Captain... Oh, Zach Brennigan. Zach Brennigan. Hey, that was Zach Brennigan. Naked navel. Naked navel. Who can do Bender, though? Lila. Bender. Show me your naked navel. Hey, show me your naked navel. I can't. Remember me. Remember me. Such a good episode. Such a good episode. Okay, let's watch the clip. The first four seasons of Futurama are delish.

9:00Those are the ones I watched. That's what you guys told me. Just like the Simpsons. There's some good episodes later on. Just like... It's so funny that I started watching the Simpsons. I rented the DVDs at the library in the States when we were there. And I watched from season one to season nine. All of them? Yeah, yeah. I was watching them one by one. And it's so funny because those are apparently the best seasons and it stops after nine. And I just instinctually stopped there. And then everyone doing Simpsons reference, they always reference those one through nine. Yeah. I think somebody did a video. Like, what was it? Nerdwriter or someone who just like... When Simpsons jumped the shark. And it's like one episode where they kind of break their rules of how their storytelling works and their characters. And from then you can see visibly it gradually just, you know, losing.

9:43I think like the biggest part of why those later seasons, at least for me, and this is what happened in Futurama. How much did you watch of Simpsons? I definitely watched all the first nine seasons. And then sporadically sometimes I would revisit. Like all these shows, they keep going on like Family Guy or something. You're just kind of like, oh, let's see if it's still crap. And you watch and it's like, okay, get it. I mean, they can be funny. But I think all the great things that Simpsons did, you know, all the amazing sort of, you know, bits that make it great. The one that I really liked is that the humor derived from the characters and the characters were quite defined in what they do. And then later on, what you have is you have like, you can clearly see they had a list of

10:23jokes and then they applied that joke to, you know, these characters. Like, I remember I watched a, like a later on Simpsons episode, which did a parody of Apple products. And I remember the joke was, I think Homer comes up and he's like, oh, you know, it's like, do you want to buy? So like, he comes to the Apple store and he's like, just give me something that's expensive and I can't upgrade, you know, which is like, you can clearly see somebody wrote that joke to understand, okay, why is it, you know, funny to make fun of Apple because of how they're done. But it's not Homer would never. Yeah. Yeah. He would never understand that, nor would he ever make a joke. Like they'd never say like, it's like, and you completely lose it.

11:05Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like. Back in the day, they had like millions of characters and you can fit, like if, if you know, the comic guy from Simpsons came into the Apple store and said that, that would make sense. Yeah. Because he's a nerd and he knows these things. Right. But they just go, okay, so this guy says this, you know, and that's definitely that would kind of lost the magic for me for the Simpsons. But this isn't the Simpsons minute, is it? No. Well, I'll put this at the end. This will be in the end. Okay. Secret thing. Secret thing. Simpsons. No, that's good. It's, it's, it's, it's fine. It's fine. You know, the people need to learn that we operate in chaos. Yeah. Cause I think by the end, when we do like minute 120, it'll be a three hour, 80% three hour podcast. And then let's go to the minute. Okay. Can we do the minute? Let's just hijack the whole podcast and make it a new podcast.

11:47Nothing to do with the minute. Just our own things. Thank you for listening. I mean, honestly, like if you, you know, seriously. Appreciate it. Worst minute ever. All right. So the music, it kicks in again. Agent Smith makes a little look and the weirdest thing in the matrix now happens. Neo's mouth melts so far, at least. Neo's mouth just melts and he's literally silenced. Well, let's talk about this. I have no mouth and I must scream, but I can't because I have no mouth. That's correct. Let's talk about the strange. Does that actually muff anything? I mean, you know, I've noticed that we definitely tend to sometimes talk about like the logic of the film, which is partly why we're doing every single minute because it's fun.

12:27But this is just weird. This is like a shocking moment. But this is an interesting part where we do have to wonder, I guess this is just matrix manipulation. Yeah. Something like this never happens. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. They change a wall or something. And this, you know, this whole beginning, uh, this whole thing and the scenes that are the minutes that are coming up next. These are like just unique to this beginning of the matrix and don't even appear in the sequels. Because it does tend to open up sort of possibilities that are not later used. Like, I don't know. It's just a very strange thing for them to do this because if this is the case and they can do that, then really what's stopping them from controlling Neo's body?

13:10Like they could just freeze him or something. Yeah. I mean, they, uh, you know, like, well, there's two things. One is that perhaps once he's plugged out, you know, they don't have those capabilities. That's true. I agree. But the second thing is that makes you wonder why do they even, they're in a locked, secure room. There's no point of, you know, muffling his, his mouth. You know, there's absolutely no point. Secondly, it doesn't, you know, they could, if what you're saying is true, like if they can liquefy his mouth and make it, you know, melt together, they can just melt his arms and legs and he can just be like this boneless chicken, you know? Yeah, he could. Yeah. I'm saying like anything is possible if this works. So why do they do it?

13:50Maybe this is his, this is his humor. Agent Smith's humor. This is what he likes. And yeah. In the original, in the 1996 script, um, there's only like two differences in this, um, major differences. And one is, um, the agents actually do snicker. It says, Oh no. That's what I mean. It's like, it's what they do on weekends. It's like, let's go melt someone's mouth. And that's just the one thing they have in their repertoire. It's like tiny, stupid humans. They can't comprehend their life without their mouths. Yeah. They, they, they, they don't go drinking. They don't go eating out or anything. They go melting people's mouths. Well, here's a funny thing that you mentioned that this is in the original script.

14:32That is always a sign of something that's been since the beginning. Like, Oh, we have this cool idea for a scene. And by the time they even write the script, it's already perfected in their minds. And he keeps staying. And maybe later on, they looked at it and says, well, the kind of grand scheme of this movie, this does not feel right here. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. That's what it feels like. I think so too. But they were like, you know what? It's been here for 10 years. We have to shoot it. I think so too. And plus, at least one, looking at it positively, either way, for a first viewer, this is a shocker in the movie because you go, oh my goodness, what is this? Like, what's happening? What is this?

15:12Dark science. Yeah. I think at least one good thing is that first time viewers, they get, they start questioning stuff like, oh, what is this? Why is this happening? This is a stranger movie than I thought. And it only gets stranger. I can tell you what happens, like what I thought. I thought it was maybe something in the room. Maybe it's like the room giving illusions or something. And when I was a kid, when I was watching this. But yeah, that's the positive end of that. But other than that. Up on this point, you saw some supernatural stuff, you know, Trinity jumping and flying through the window. But again, like when I asked my little nephew what he thought of those initial scenes, and he was like, well, I just thought, you know, the movie is like super slow motion. That doesn't mean, you know, that means like it's supernatural and they're just good at their karate stuff.

15:53But this is definitely out of the window. Like, okay, something's really messy going around. Nobody can melt. And now let's talk about the little bug. Well, one of the agents moves the chair when Neo gets up from it. No way. He just kind of slides the chair off frame. I think it's Agent Brown. Yes, he does. Maybe it's an outtake. Politely. But they're very polite. And Agent Smith is like having a little chuckle to himself as Neo's panicking. Now in the original 1996 script, what happens is Neo starts bursting towards the door, tries to open the door. And the agents stop him. But I was thinking if you filmed that, it would look kind of silly. It's like he's going to the bathroom. Maybe the door handle starts to melt.

16:34That would have been even better. No, it's like he's like this Play-Doh handle. Like, you know, handle and he's just like wiggling it. No. So Agent Jones and Agent Brown just grab him and then throw him on this table and then, you know, rip open his shirt. Dude is ripped. Dude is jacked. Dude has been going to the gym every time he hacks. He's like, yes, now I have my protein shake and I'm going to work it out. Going to work it out. Yeah. The girls will love me when I go to Rob Zombie Gigs. Like he like messaged a girl and she messaged back like, hey, and that for Neo was like, time to go to the gym. Prepare myself. Yep. For the big date.

17:15Never know. With these agents walking around. Yep. Did you guys notice that even when he is quite shredded, but there's a little hole next to his navel. Yeah, I was wondering what that was. Next to his what? What is that? Do you know? What? Look at the shot with the little bug. Okay. The kind of bug hero shot. He has a secondary navel. Oh, he has a little. Yeah. I never noticed that. Maybe it's a scar. Or. That's true. Who knows? Who knows? But what I want to talk about was. I was like, I was going to say that Smith takes out his deluxe cigarette case. Yeah. I was going to say. Yeah. With his little tracking bug devices. He has a nice little four of them. How do I need to have? I love that because that reminds me of all the classic movies before.

17:55You have the sort of, like even in Star Wars, you have the set dressers or whatever. The props guys. Yeah. And it's always like an item that's been used for something else. I love, you know, finding out what it actually is. You know, like the, in episode one when he's the communicator that Qui-Gon Jinn uses. It's a razor. Maybe shaving machine. Yeah. It's like razor machine. Yeah. Those are neat. Those are neat things. I wonder what this is. I don't know. I think this looks like custom made, to be honest. The case is reminiscent of a cigarette case. Yeah. But other than that. But this is a bugging device. This is some kind of a tracking thing. Well, here's another weird thing we can talk about since we mentioned this earlier is that,

18:35you know, at this point we're very confused at how much power the agents have. And I think at this point in the film, it's completely, who knows? Because look at this. He has this weird bug. This is a program, clearly. But is it? It's just, he presses a button and then the thing starts. It's just so strange because it's just. It's just developing into an actual. But again, it's just right. At this point in the film, if we're talking about the logic of it, it's a little bit wonky because like you said, how much power do they have to manipulate the matrix and people in the matrix? And if they can do the mouth thing, why is the bug necessary? If we're talking pure logic, but. How does a biology of this bug work? Okay. So we're looking at it. It's, it, it's a little piece of metal.

19:15It looks like a battery. It has a light on it. It's attached to like a spring, right? Yeah. Presses the button. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's a program. Around the spring. Yeah, yeah, I know. This membrane forms. I think it's just, to be honest. And then out of the membrane, this little tentacle monster looks nothing like the thing previously. Well, I think this is all just visual stuff that the Wachowskis or whoever came up with just to be cool. Definitely. Absolutely. But still. This is nothing like actually you can figure out. I wonder what like fan theories are of like what is this, like how they explain it. You know, those, all those good people of fan fictions, everything when they, when they explain. Because it looks like a shrimp, this thing. That's an interesting point you mentioned, because I think that like, like I said, we're often like trying to look for like explanations for everything, which is fun.

19:56But at the same time, you know, like maybe in earlier versions of the Matrix, maybe part of the idea of making the Matrix was not to have crystal clear boundaries between these things that we're talking about, you know. And I think that's why maybe these scenes are strange and they don't really have necessarily super good explanations. But that's just part of the, you know, kind of like artsy, aesthetic, mysterious vibe. True. Yeah. So anyway. I sent you a screenshot. Look at that. Look at that little monster shrimp pulling the navel apart. He stretches that thing pretty bad. Look at that. Ooh. That's a, that's a big stretch.

20:38That was a big one. So storyboarder Steve Skros, who we've talked about, I keep uploading on Facebook, all his storyboards, wonderful stuff. He said that the Wachowskis were worried about how scary the scene was going to be for Warner Brothers because they tried to make it as creepy as they could. They, they originally wanted the tentacles to be making bulges under Neo's skin as it, you know. Oh man. Yeah. As it crawled inside his navel. So they didn't really do that here. It wasn't so extreme, but yeah. So anyway, we also have an introduction of a comic artist, Jeff Darrow's, you know, he did concept art for the bugs and the machines and the machine world, most of that stuff in the real world. So one of his creations, which is, you know, Jeff Darrow's design.

21:19So the intention was to make it as creepy as possible. So I don't know. It feels like what Tim said, like they had this in their heads for like 10 years and long time. I mean, again, watching it. I mean, they probably watched, you know, Alien for the first time, you know, chest burster and all this stuff. And you're like, what if it was going inside instead of out, you know what I mean? Like, it's definitely that sort of, you can see all the classic. It was still ever since watching it from the first time. It was just a very strange scene, but I didn't really think too much about it. It scared the shit out of me. Definitely. When I was a kid, there's this whole thing. It's like, it puts you in from the sci-fi to a little bit of kind of horror specter. Definitely. You're going to help us, Mr. Anderson.

22:01More or less it. So he gets stuck in his stomach or wherever that thing goes. I have one more question. Technical question here. There's a wide shot where the camera's looking down at agents holding Neo and Smith's hand is dropping the bug. It looks like a blue screened. Oh, let's see. I'm watching. Fake hand. Oh, yeah, yeah. The fake hand. I think it must be, yeah, definitely a fake hand because they wanted to. Oh, my goodness. That was a fake hand. They didn't, you know, like. No, guys, no. I think that's actually his hand. Because it's like a little too. But it looks weird because the other agent is struggling to hold him down.

22:43Maybe. It might be a fake hand as well because of, you know, how the layers of the stuff they didn't want to, you know. When you're going to. They'll have the trouble with the hand. So they think they'll shot him by himself. Then there's a little shrink. It looks so weird. But then they did a great job cutting to Neo's close up and the hand still moves back. So that's pretty good. Well done. Yeah. Definitely great. Like this holds up even the mouth mushing, which I think is probably a practical effect. No? Oh, the mushing of the mouth. No, that's digital. It's a CG. Even like afterwards? Oh, no, no, no. Afterwards is practical. Afterwards is practical. It's a whole thing. Well, Neo talked about Neo. Keanu Reeves talked about that and making out of him the entire day having to not be able

23:24to speak. And he would write stuff on post-it notes. And he starts writing and one of the witch asks, he's like, come on, make it quick. We've got a time. We've got time here. A, C, D, spelling it out. But I have to say, it's definitely memorable visually because, I don't know, before Photoshop had Liquify. You know, Liquify the tool when you can mesh with photos, manipulate them. Liquify was basically like a smudge tool, wasn't it? It's like an advanced smudge tool where you can do any of this sort of stuff. But before that, there was this single application I had. It was a demo called Goo. Do you guys remember that? I don't. No. And it was just this. It was like the manipulation where you can move parts of it and it'll be like, you know,

24:05like sort of like Liquify stuff. I definitely did. And the funny thing is I didn't have any photos back in there on my computer and that application only had one stock photo. It was Mona Lisa. So I remember trying to recreate the Neo. Really? The mushiness of the little stalemites. With Mona Lisa. Yeah, with Mona Lisa. Wow. Well, I think that's about it. That's the whole minute, I think. We don't have much else to talk about. I think I got everything. Yep. No. I'm Tim at Twitter at Tim Meerski. I am at Phil Dragish. Hope to see you next time. You can find us on iTunes. You're going to listen to us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not. Did a PR stunt last time, but we have an email.

24:46So drop us. That is true. A mail at ask at the matrix minute. That's ask with an A-S-K, not an A-S-S. We would love some feedback because we love you. Exactly. And love is the only thing worth fighting for. Even in this movie. It makes the world go around. Yeah. Everything. All of it. And when you know you're in love, you're the one, apparently. No. What? No, no. Being the one, it's like being in love. No one can tell you. You just know it. Exactly. Balls to bones. Weirdest expression there. What? That is the real expression. It's not gay if they're not touching. No, if they're not looking in the eyes. Okay. What am I talking about?

25:27Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Okay. Bye. Thank you.