Minute 26: “At last.”

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 talk about the Matrix movie one minute at a time. I am Tim Moore. Who are you? Hello, Tim Moore. I am Phil, and I'm the one who didn't do the intro today in this special episode. And the Matrix was the first DVD to have a million copies sold. That's a lot of copies. Yep. First DVD to ever do that. Have I got information for you? My name is Jake, and I would love to tell you, I'm not 100% sure if this is true or not, but according to my research, the Matrix was the first film to be shot in the then-just-opened Fox Studios in Sydney. Oh, wow. So I can't vouch for the truth on that, but it could be true because I heard in 1998 they opened that Fox Studios.

0:43Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds about right. Yeah, and then the Star Wars prequels, the episode 2 and 3 were shot there. No way. Yeah. What? Really? Yeah. Magical. With those amazing digital cameras with tapes. I love those digital cameras. And this is an interestingly, um, interesting episode because we are here. We've made it. At last. To Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Why don't you tell us what happens in the minute 26? Minute 26. Before entering the double doors in an old hotel to meet Morpheus, Trinity tells him, Be honest. He knows more than you can imagine. And we finally meet the man himself.

1:25In the old room with the two armchairs and in the middle, a stool with a glass of water. Neo shakes Morpheus' hand, but Morpheus tells him that he is honored to meet him. More than Neo is to meet him. Neo takes a seat and Morpheus closes the door behind him and wonders if he feels a bit like Alice. Morpheus. Talking to Neo. Tumbling down the rabbit hole. And that's how the minute ends. My friends. Okay, Morpheus. Morpheus is here. Morpheus. Morpheus. Let's start with the essentials. No, let's talk about the build up here.

2:06No. Let's talk about the essentials. She tells him things. No, wait. Morpheus says one piece of advice. Be honest. He knows more than you can imagine. And that rotating camera that goes to the center of the door and he's about to walk in. That is cool. Really like that. Now, Trinity's freaking out a lot of a bit. This is like. Oh, yes, she is. She's being a bit like Morpheus. Why would that be? What is this? Like an interview? And Morpheus is going to ask him questions. Do you hack good, Neo? Do you hack good? How many years experience have you had? And he's like. Oh, I have 40 years of experience. But you're only 30. I know everything. I hacked into your Matrix database.

2:49Your D-base. And I found out that you're not 50. I don't even know. But yeah, I don't understand that. I think Trinity is trying to just sort of build up. Could they all look up to Morpheus? Well, I got hyped up when I was watching the film. Definitely. Yes. I thought they were going to meet some kind of like monster or something. Well, you know, I have some stories about what happened when we met Morpheus when I first saw this because I remember that the most. And it's going to be funny to say. But anyway, did you notice that Trinity is wearing an interesting coat? She doesn't really wear that. You're right. Afterwards. I don't think. I've only noticed this now. It's like one of those streaker trench coats. I don't. Guys, I think you're. I think she actually wears that at the lobby. Does she not? Oh, maybe. We're going to have to wait and see. She's wearing like. She wears all kinds of like super PVC.

3:32She has like a whole set. She like bought it. She didn't fill up the construct. The construct. Like they made this whole set for her and it's all the same. Same material. Oh, I see. It's just different cuts. I don't know. I think that's kind of cool though how they all wear different things. Well, definitely. But they're all very black. Well, not really. In this first movie. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's sort of. Only Morpheus. Well, Switch is just all white. That's cool. Yeah. I dig that. Apox, all gangster. So Trinity says he knows more. Than you think. Than you can imagine. Than you can imagine. So even more than he can imagine. What does she mean by that? Well, Morpheus knows quite a bit. And then when you watch it in retrospect, you're like, oh yeah, of course he knows a lot.

4:13Because this is all a simulation. And that's what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that we're moving from minimal basic storytelling to multi-leveled expansions. Okay. Which, you know. Go on. Which is. That's what's going to make the film, you know. Much more than it seemed, you know, in the past 26 minutes. So in the past 26 minutes, we were all just going with the mystery and the linear storytelling of a man being chased and weird people talking to him over the phones. And, you know, having a cyber criminal record. But we had hints of, you know, creepy things happening. The mouth melting and the bug. And then we had people jumping up and down. That's impossible.

4:54Remember that? They're just doing crazy stunts that no one can do. And, of course, the underlying mystery of what is the Matrix. And what is the Matrix? Which is some entity that we don't understand. Could it be a person? Could it be a thing? I almost thought it was a person when I was watching this minute here. Oh, you thought you were going to meet the Matrix instead of the Matrix? Yeah, I don't know. Like, what is it? Who is it? Why? Could be anything. What was its reasoning? So, yeah. So now this is where the game changes. This is where we're delving into the rabbit hole with all the illusions. No. This is the reveal. Yeah. Not only the reveal of our character Morpheus here, but also of what the film really will

5:34be about. Yeah, I like that. And so Morpheus, he's showing up and then he's just looking out the window, standing solemnly like a statue in the rain in the old hotel with his trench coat, you know, when he's standing there in that wide shot. And also, he always folds his arms in a weird way. Did you notice that? Because he's like, you know, stoic. He's a reverend. He's like, mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. He could be kind of priestly. Listen. Quite priestly. He has his little stance. Can we get the basics? Morpheus. Tell us, Philip. I'm sure you did your research. Morpheus. Meaning of the name. Well, it means God of Dreams. And that comes from? Isn't it Greek?

6:14The Greek mythology. Mythology. Yeah. Anything else we can add? Does he morph? I thought you had this plan. You know, if you give me five seconds, if you give me five minutes, I will. Well, because I want to actually touch on some of these because it's interesting because there's a lot of elements from different mythologies and historical and philosophical names and themes. So he might as well just mention some. So in case someone doesn't know. Well, yeah. Yeah. His name means God of Dreams. But, you know, the Morpheus in this movie, obviously, he's doing the opposite. He's taking people out of dreams. Yeah, that's what I was wondering as well. And he's also a Sandman reference to Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Really? Comics.

6:54Yeah. The main character is Sandman Morpheus. Cool. I didn't know that. Okay. That's pretty cool. Neil Gaiman would actually write some of the Matrix comics, too. No way. So it goes full circle. Hey, what do you know? The funny thing that I've noticed re-watching this scene is all the times I watched The Matrix when I was younger, since, you know, you're watching it and you kind of put yourself in Neil's shoes, so you kind of see through his eyes. Back in the day, I would always see the age difference between Neo and Morpheus much bigger. I don't know about you. No, I never noticed that. Like, 20 years when I was watching it would be, he's the old wise man and Neo is the young Oh, right.

7:34Yeah. But watching now, you know, having much more years where the age difference, they look like the same age. Yeah. They look relatively, you couldn't tell. Yeah. They all look relatively same age. Contemporaries. On par. Yes. Definitely contemporaries. As compared to when I was a kid, like Morpheus was the older, smarter person. Yeah. When you do get older and when I was in fifth grade, I thought the sixth graders were giants. Dude. Wise. When I was listening to this. Old people. The sixth graders were, right? When I was in, no. When I was in sixth grade, the seniors in high school, my goodness, adults. Yeah. And you're like, what? And now, you get to talk and you're like, this is, what? And now you're, you go back and you're like, who are these children?

8:17Kids are getting younger when they're going to high school. And then you remember. Yeah. No, wait. I was that young. It's weird. If you live 13 and you're looking at an 18 year old, it's basically a grandpa. Yes. Yes. You're looking at an 18 year old and they go, who are you, child? Hello, child. Hello, child. That's a good point. I never noticed that. Do you go to high school? I'm working at a university. What? Yeah. Exactly. So what's interesting is that. When they meet, it's all wide angle. It's all wide shots. It's really cool. I like it. You can see so much of the frame. And it's just, I think that that's what makes the impact better because it gives the audience a chance to see the entire area and the surrounding when Morpheus and Neo meet.

9:00And I love that close up when the camera pushes into Morpheus and he turns. Oh, it's so good. And he does a little smile and goes, at last. Oh, it's interesting because I really can't remember the feeling of this scene when we first watched it. When we watched it. Oh, I have a story for you, my friend. Okay. Let's hear it. Well, you've been hyping up the story, so get it out. Let's hear it. When I was a kid, I remember clearly. When we meet Morpheus, I really didn't connect the picture that we saw because we just saw it for one brief instance. You know, the Heathrow one. But I did see action figures. You know, I mentioned that back in the intro. These little action figures that showed the agent doing the bullet-time thing.

9:41But the effect was like, they would put different, like, the agent in different poses with like, slime, which is supposed to look like motion blurs. So it looks like, like I said. But it was literally multiple figures. Yeah. And if people didn't listen to the intro, I mentioned that I thought it was kind of like a Cronenberg horror kind of movie sort of thing going on. You know, that kind of body horror thing. So I thought freaky stuff like that would happen. I didn't know who Cronenberg was or what body horror was, but I got the concept, you know, like subconsciously when I was a child. This is when I was 11. So when we were watching this scene, I remember with Stan, our older cousin, and my dad, and you, Jake, and me, and we were watching it.

10:23Morpheus shows up in the movie, finally. And then I saw him with those glasses. And I remembered those glasses. And then, um, I still remember saying, oh, wait, wait, is that the guy that has tentacles in his eyes or something? Really? Yeah. Because I thought he never took off his glasses because he probably has some kind of like weird, like tentacles in his eyes. Where did you get the idea from tentacles? I don't know. Because I was, yeah, yeah, the Cronenberg thing. And I thought that would be like in comics that I probably like glanced at. That's very useful. It's like, last we meet. Yeah. He never, he never takes off his glasses. So we'll see it one scene, someone takes him off and you can see like some tentacles. But what are they like, like little telescopic tentacles that kind of come out?

11:04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe like the sentinels. Yeah, like that, like that, like that. Oh, just like. And I really, like small ones, you know, like little ones. Oh, little tiny ones. Oh, little ones. Yeah, he doesn't have eyes. Footlong tentacles. No, not footlong tentacles. Just like little eyes. Little tongues. Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm thinking of. That is some crazy stuff. That's what I thought the Matrix was going to be. I thought it was going to be weird stuff like that, that I wouldn't comprehend. But you were wrong. And I didn't expect to actually like it as much as I did when we finished watching it. Well, yeah, but I think when we used to watch movies when we were kids, I think we were also apprehensive. And so I still remember saying, so is that the guy with tentacles in his eyes or what? I still remember. We were all sitting there in silence. Yeah, we were like, and Yoni's probably just like, that's my face palm sound effect.

11:46Maybe he didn't even hear you, so you're okay. You're safe. So what's interesting is that- You never knew until now. Maybe Phil will shush me, but this room reappears in the film. Shut up. Shut up. There's the shushing. Why can't we talk about this when it happens? Because we're here and I want to point out that the room is the same room. It's going to be a long time until we talk about it again. Yeah, we'll forget about it. People will forget about it. So forget it. This room appears again. We just realized this recently. Later on, when there's a glitch in the matrix and when Mouse is house-sitting, he's sitting there reading newspapers in the very same room. Did you know that? Oh, and then behind him is the door.

12:26Yes. The window. It turns into a brick wall because they changed something. Oh. Didn't know that. For years. I thought it was a totally different place. Okay. That's interesting. But I have to say that the set design, so far we've seen only two, well, kind of three kind of worlds, but we've seen this sort of old hotel grimy. What kind of style? Because this is not noir because noir wasn't never this grimy. This is like, what is it? I think this is like what? What's the first movie or art? 30s to 50s, something like that. I would say. That sort of utilized. Did you know, Phil? What's the first sort of, I guess, not art form or story form where we've seen this kind of aesthetic?

13:08I don't know. I just, all I can think of is the Maltese Falcon. Yeah. The Maltese Falcon? I think it's all back to sort of early periods of film, maybe. But there's definitely that sort of like, though I have to say like. Art Nouveau, I guess. Blade Runner and stuff like that in the 80s had a lot of this. Because in the 70s and the 80s, New York and all these cities, Detroit and everything, Chicago was kind of falling apart and downtown was totally crap and everything. So all these old buildings that were grand would kind of go into this grimy state. So remember like Blade Runner and all these movies, especially the sort of post-apocalyptic

13:48ones? Like Robocop? Yeah. Robocop. Yeah. That's like a, what do you call that? The totalitarian, no, no, no. The dystopian. Yeah, definitely. Dystopian city kind of. But it's kind of Art Nouveau. You should check out some Art Nouveau. Okay. Maybe the whole idea is also like post, you know, like Roaring 20, stuff like that. Yeah. Everything is like, like you said. Oh, you know what? Destroyed. Which movie also reminds me of the set setting. What's it called? The Terry G one, the 12 Monkeys. Had a lot of these sort of breakdown Detroit like, you know, like places. So it's very nice. And I like the sort of comparison when you compare it to Neo's workspace, which is like

14:29very straight lines and quite clean compared to this. I always liked the aesthetic they picked because essentially this is like the, the crew in the film is basically like they're very much sort of renegades and they have to sort of Renegades of funk. They find themselves, I don't know if it's on purpose or not. Maybe they're hiding in inconspicuous places, but it just happens to be so like I mentioned before that stylistically it's still, um, gives off an interesting vibe and it isn't something super, you know, it's not super ugly, but it's clearly not. It's all broken down. So was this, uh, Philip, was this in the original sort of like storyboards and everything?

15:10Was this art, uh, like from the beginning? Oh, the architecture? Just, just the scene setting, like the, oh yeah. The set. It's a set, right? Probably. It's not a real place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was, it was, it was, nice. Yeah, that's, that's pretty close to what they were thinking of. Well, I think the chairs are iconic. Uh-huh. The red chairs, armchairs. Oh yeah. Those are sweet, I have to say. And, uh, it's nice that they reuse them later in the film during the scene where Morphix explains the Matrix to Neo. Morphix likes those chairs. He brings them in.

15:50He does. He loves them. I really like those chairs. But it's so funny because they are so like broken down and ugly too. But you're just like, I shall sit here. Neo. I always wondered like, because everything was so grimy, I always thought, I wonder if that water is even clean. Oh no, it's super clean. That's what I thought when I was, yeah. It's the best, the finest Matrix water the simulation can create. Or Morpheus just stuck the glass out of the window, got some rain, rain water. This would be good for Neo. Well, do you know how Morpheus, you know, alternatively could have began his speech is, do you think that's water you're drinking? And Neo would go, he would go, that's all he would say. He wouldn't spit it out and go, what did you put in there?

16:33What is it? Water Neo, calm down. He would just look confusingly at Morpheus, Morpheus, look and go, smile and go. Anyway, he says, he tells Neo, the honor is mine. The honor is mine. It shifts the curiosity to make us wonder what makes, you know, Neo so special. You know, what's so important, you know, with, what's Neo? Because we've hung out with Neo for the past 26 minutes. Hints dropped all the time about Neo being the one, the one, the one, the one. Like once or twice. I also would know it, like from watching the movie, maybe, yeah, if I was smarter, older, but back in the day, I didn't catch it until he starts beating it into him. The one, you're the one, you're the one, you're the one, you're the one.

17:14I'm just saying that the focus shifts from us being in awe of Morpheus to us going, we, the one, Neo, what? You know, he's important. We get the, what can we say about that though? When it comes with that. I'm just saying that that's kind of, that's what's going on in the narrative now. Yeah. We're switching gears to being more curious about our own main character, you know? And it's true that Neo, and I wanted to say that he sits down and he looks at the glass of water when, you know, Morpheus goes, come sit down. And then you see just the shot of Neo just standing there and then there's a glass of water. It's just, it's really cool. I really liked that little bit of subtlety there.

17:55And then he just says, feel a lot like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole. Little, little reference. Little reference to Lewis Carroll. Yeah. You know what I was wondering? I wanted to ask you guys. And that's all I have to say about that because it's like a little too obvious in my opinion. Well, it's already happening, you know. You followed the white rabbit, Neo. With Choi and his girlfriend and the white rabbit. I wanted to say something was that I believe that that is the extent of the reference. So they have a little plan. They thought of this, you know, beforehand. What I simply wanted to say is that I believe that the Alice in Wonderland reference, the only extent of it is that reference of tumbling down the rabbit hole and falling white rabbit. I think that's it. I don't think there's any more Lewis Carroll references in the film, to my knowledge.

18:35Maybe on our journey we'll find out who this. That's it. I'm asking you guys though, are there any more references? Because I always wanted to know if there are. Maybe we'll see somewhere. Maybe we'll buy a line and read the book. I've only seen the Disney movie. And thus begins our whole end of the month with just Morpheus talking to Neo. Pretty much, more or less. It's like two weeks of Morpheus and Neo. Welcome. Welcome to the Matrix. So yeah, there's going to be a lot of talking about Morpheus. Let's hope we have some stuff to talk about. Well, I have to do some research as well. Well, what I wanted to say at the finish, I'm going to save it for the next episode. Oh. So, let's go on to the next episode.

19:18Wait, quick announcements. You can follow us at Facebook. You can write there. I would love to hear people write there. We would love to hear anything. I would love to write there. Also, if you have any additions to make on stuff that we probably missed. Yes, we would love to hear stuff that we missed. And reiterate that. Because of course, we can't cover anything. We're only doing our best how much we know. But we would love to hear stuff that you guys always picked up on or noticed. Or maybe your personal experience or stories watching the movie. We would love to hear you guys' stuff. Because let's be honest, you probably know more than us. Yes, I'm pretty sure. Most likely. Yes. Yeah. So you can write on Facebook. There's actually a Facebook group now. You can join. And we can chat there. And it's closed, obviously.

19:59So it's a private group. So you don't have to be publicly writing. You can also catch us on Twitter. Twitter. We basically just post episode updates there. And yeah, you can find us as well on iTunes. And you can rate us as usual. Yeah, baby. Okay, that's it for the announcements. And we'll catch you on the next episode. Whoa! This has been lovely. Thank you.