Minute 49: “This is a sparring program…”

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. I am your host, Phil, and I have something to say. The Matrix would have cost around $180 million if it was shot in the US. Thankfully, they shot in Australia. Great. In Australia. Well, guess what? My name is Jake and I actually have trivia today. Wow. Can you believe it? Do you look for it now? No, no, no. This is old. Oh, okay. And it includes a question. So, you know how obviously they have basic cable cuts of films. Where they have to replace the swear words. Okay. What do you guys think they replaced for shit in the movie? What words do you think? Scheisse. Nope. Because German swearing is not swearing.

0:42Patrick, anything? Oh, I'm allowed to talk? You are allowed to talk. Hey, Patrick's here. They know you're here. Yeah, Patrick's here. Yay! And then Tim and I'll tell my trivia. Okay, I wasn't sure. Did they say shoot? Close. I thought it was also shoot, but no. It's actually shucks or smokes. Oh. It's just even better. Actually, now that you're talking about that, this movie has one of my favorite cable TV edits. Oh, yes. Which one did you share, please? I think I know what you're talking about. Go on, sir. Okay. I remember this was on like TBS when I was in high school and it blew my mind. Okay. So, in the bug extraction scene. Mm-hmm. Is that what you're thinking I was going to say? Mm-hmm.

1:22Keep going. Keep going. So, they pull the bug out of him and Neo screams, Jesus Christ, that thing's real. And on TV, it becomes Jeepers Creepers, that thing's real. That thing's real. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. What an edit. Well, I have one more for you guys, which I never, ever knew about. And it's also amazing. So, in the interrogation room, right, with Smith and Neo, right? Mm-hmm. Neo goes, how about I give you the finger, right? Okay. Guess what's on TV? How about I give you a flipper? What? I don't know. Why is fingers? I don't know. What does it have to do with anything? They have to cut out. Do they cut the finger out? It's not even a swear word. Yes, and cut out the finger. But do they cut out the finger? Yes, they're completely cutting out the actual middle finger. So, to just keep on like on Agent Smith.

2:05Yeah, they cut out. They cut out. You give me a phone call as well. What? Yeah. But, it's just, how about I give you a flipper? Cut. Well, here's the thing. That's even worse because you can't see it. Like, he could just be taking his pants off. You know, it could be euphemism for his junk. It's true. It's true. That's even worse. Kids going around to school. I just have to say that I... I'll show you my flipper. It is of personal interest and probably just archival purposes that we preserve these TV edits. Oh, man, I would love to hear them. That's so funny. It's funny because where I grew up, no such thing existed. There was no ratings. Right, right. Anything could be played any time of the day on TV. So, this is a complete new... First time I experienced it was on an airplane. I was like, what is this?

2:46Like, where's the scene missing? Right. And I realized like they cut things away because... It's just magical. That's so weird to me. It's pretty weird. But they can be pretty funny. Like, I don't know if you guys have seen on the DVDs for like Shaun of the Dead. Yes. They had... I don't know this one. Down here. Keep going. Okay. Funky Pete? Yes. What? They have a special feature called Funky Pete. And there's the scene where Pete Serafinowicz's character... You know the scene where... You've seen the movie, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. Where he... You know, they're like... Like, Sean and Ed are, you know, playing like electro music like late at night and dancing.

3:30And he comes in. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can swear on the podcast, right? Yes, you can. This is rated R. Great. And, you know, he's like, you know, the whole like, you know, like, I have to go to work in four fucking hours. Because it's like, you know, it's fucking four in the morning. Yeah. He says fuck a lot. And they recorded... They made their own like TV edits. And they just replaced them with the funniest things. And so they just replaced fuck with funk. And so it's just like, you know, like four fucking hours. That's awesome. And the whole... Yeah. And they have just like this super cut of like the funniest, like, you know, like, yeah, like edited lines through the whole movie. And it's really entertaining.

4:11Sounds great. Yeah. And it's on YouTube so we can link it up. We should link it up. It's amazing. Yeah, we'll trade. I'll give you the script. You give me those videos. I love it. All right. So welcome. This is minute 30. You have to introduce the person who's talking. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Patrick Williams, you're here with us once more. You make movies. You do really great video essays. And you're just a really fun guy to be around with. Hey. I try. Well, you haven't seen me in person. I could be a monster. Ah, okay. Don't believe it. I don't believe it. We don't judge, you know. It's okay. Yeah, we don't judge. It's fine. It's all good. If you could be this creature, it's okay. It's all good. Sound amazing. Important. Thank you guys. It's a pleasure to be here. Awesome. And yeah, we're at minute 49.

4:52We're really close to 50. Almost an hour. Wow. Almost there. Ah, we got to do it. And in this minute. Wait, before we get into the minute. Let me just read the description. What do you have, Tim? Okay. Sure. Read the description. I have something that's like, it's not tied with the minute. It's something to do with what we talked about before. Okay. We can edit that in later. I did some pointless research. Oh, did you? I don't know if it was Robbie or who he had last time on. He mentioned a movie that was released around that time that sort of had the Matrix kind of vibe to it. It's called The 13th Floor. Mm-hmm. Came out the same year, right? Yep. Did you ever watch this, Patrick, or no?

5:32Um, I never saw it, but I remember the TV spots for it distinctly and being curious about it. Again, like with The Matrix, I did not see it at the time because it was an R-rated movie and I was 11 years old and I was like, I can't see that. Right. But I just thought of it or it came up in conversation, I think, like last, no, maybe earlier this year, I was talking with a friend and they had no idea what I was talking about. And so I did like whip up my phone and look it up and, you know, I was like, what was that movie actually that I vaguely remember? And, uh, it wasn't just like a big financial failure and that just didn't do well at all. But I had no idea. Yeah. I never knew about it until now. I was like, oh, this was another one of those movies that came around The Matrix that sort

6:15of had a similar kind of vibe and a thing. So I really wanted to watch it and see how it compares to what The Matrix is, you know, to see what the vibe of actual these kind of movies was at the time. Well, did you watch it? Yes, I did. Oh, you did? And then that means I should watch Existence. You should check out Existence. Existence. However you pronounce that. The Cronenberg film. Yes. I love Cronenberg. It's not one of my favorite movies by him. Although it does have some cool, weird body horror stuff with these like flesh guns and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. The meat big guns we saw on the trailer. It's a but that's also I kind of got the vibe.

6:56It's like this is like a 50 year old man in the late 90s making a movie about video games and it seems so unrelated to any anything that actually exists. But still, it's like, you know, Cronenberg is great and it's not his best, but check it out. So, so how's, you know, how's Ready Player One going to be? I mean, I have a lot of feelings about that. Oh, okay. I, I, I think Spielberg is our greatest living filmmaker and I think this is a waste of his time. But it's also weird to me because it's a book that's like just like a big, you know, I don't love the book, but it's weird because, you know, the book is all about like, I love the pop culture that Spielberg created and now Spielberg's directing it.

7:37Yeah. It's a bit strange. My hope is that he is that he like, you know, elevates the source material and and like fixes the big problems with the book. Yeah, that's it. And I mean, I'll be there opening day because it's Spielberg, but it's a really, it's a weird choice from, I think, I don't know. I'm all conflicted about it. Right. It's right. Strange. Just to bring it back to the 13th floor thing. Oh, yeah. I wanted to say, yeah, where we started. I'm not going to talk about the movie, but in an earlier episode when we for the first time see, you know, Neo Jack into the construct, you know, the white room, it's very, you actually

8:20mentioned this in your video, Patrick, but it's done so great, you know, with the transition and it's such a fresh, clean sort of cut. Yep. That usually you wouldn't see in the movies. And we're joking about in our stupid section, we call how to make Matrix worse, where we kind of think of the classical tropes. And that, that wouldn't be usually like a Doctor Who kind of tunnel, you know, you kind of zoom into his head and goes. Oh, it'd be so bad. And then, and then, and then you go to the funniest thing about this movie. So the first time somebody goes into virtual reality and they hook up, guess what we see? There's a Doctor Who. Oh, no. Just exactly what we're talking about. Like a CGI tunnel thing. Yes. CGI tunnel with like clouds and it's all blue and there's like lightning and then.

9:03Like a time lapse. And then he's in the virtual. Yep. Yeah. I mean, he's in the virtual world. That's totally one of those like, you know, late nineties things where it's just like, hey, we have CGI. We can like, let's, you know, sort of like, um, like, uh, I mean, this is like an odd comparison, but, uh, the, the big visual trick in the first, uh, Fast and Furious movie is, hey, we can use CGI to like fly through the interior of the car and the engine and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. I remember this. Whereas we can, we can, you know, use effects to put cameras in impossible places. Yeah. Let's do that. Woohoo. Right. And that's the thing. It's like, but because it's doing impossible camera things, it's like so detached from reality

9:47that we disengage with the movie. And so, yeah, so there, you know, that's like, okay, we can like fly through virtual reality and through like electrodes or whatever. But that makes you totally disconnect. That's so true. Right. And I think what's really good about the way the matrix does it is it stays, uh, you know, subjective. We see what Neo is seeing. And so it's the real world and then it's in the matrix and it's just, it's just like, uh, and that's it. He closes his eyes in one place and opens it in another. And also I think what's great is that it's very elegantly done because you could in principle be like, oh, let's do an effect. Let's make up something new. But if there's no need to make up something, then you don't have to, they could make them

10:28all turn into Chrome easily. You know what I mean? Like Chrome. Yeah. It's like every time you just Chrome yourself, which is fine. Like that's legitimate. But the thing is, it doesn't need, they could be like Capri Sun people. Oh no. Yes. Maybe you can drink Capri Sun and be like tank. That's how you get into the matrix. They, they missed a great product placement opportunity there. And, uh, cause Capri Sun was hot in 99. It was. I remember everyone like, uh, you know, in the cafeteria. Yeah. You know, we all had our like silver packets. We were all watching those commercials and, um, oh my God. They should have put it, you know, like during that scene when New York is chromified, it should have been like a little bit in the background, you know, just slightly blurry, a nice, you

11:10know, packet of Capri Sun. I'm going to have to Photoshop that now. You should Photoshop it. Yeah. Let's put it in the background. After Effects. Also, it would just be funny to see those, those commercials where it's like, uh, you know, like this R rated movie. Yeah. Like partnership. You know what I mean? Like, uh, man, it's like Morpheus goes like after a good workout in the construct, I like to chill out with Capri Sun. And there's just kids with backwards baseball caps running around the construct playing basketball. Or no, like, you know, like Neo shows up, like it's a glitch. He shows up in the wrong spot. Like a, like a kid's soccer field. Yes. And it's like, what is this tank? Give me the operator. Cause like, oh, look at this weird dude. Try some Capri Sun. Yeah. Oh, that'd be beautiful. There is no juice.

11:50Ah, yes. There is no juice. There is no juice. No, Ose goes in. No, no, no, no, guys. There is no juice. He steals it. You know, like one of those 90s where everyone always steals things for some reason in those commercials. Yeah. And then we'll have some like wide angle, like high shot where he just like drinks it all in one gulp. And it's like, oh. And then he says, whoa. Yes. That's commercial number two. Welcome to How to Make the Matrix. There's multiple series campaigns. Guys, I'm just gonna go make these this weekend. Please. Before we release it, so no one doesn't do it. I really want to now. Please. I would love to see those. Oh, boy. Yeah. I'm just gonna go out and like buy a black trench coat, you know. Awesome.

12:30My roommate, if he'd shave his beard, kind of looks like Keanu Reeves anyway. That's great. And so. You're gonna have to bribe him or something. I mean, he's like my main actor anyway. He's the sweet stuff. Oh, okay then. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. We've been working together since like 10th grade. That'd be beautiful. Oh, cool. It's great. It's great. And a commenter on YouTube once called him Hillbilly Keanu Reeves. What? And it was based on like one shot, but I've never forgotten that. And so. But yeah. Oh, man. I want to make this. And I just love Capri Sun jokes. I think we all do. Patrick, quick question. Go. Did you ever get influenced by the Matrix fashion as a kid or young adult or teenager by

13:13a piece of clothing that was inspired by Matrix? The closest I ever got was like a pair of sunglasses. It was one of those things where I wished I could. I like I wanted, you know, like just like any kind of like, you know, leather trench coat and stuff like that. But also. You're so glad you didn't. Well, I mean, the big thing, the reason I will. First of all, I had like no money of my own because I was in sixth grade. But I but the big thing was that I had just started middle school and in middle school. It's terrifying.

13:53And and that's it's the most awkward, like terrible part of adolescence. And I I actually like radically changed my whole wardrobe. Oh, yeah. Like I like immediately when I began middle school and like in sixth grade and because the way my district was set up, you it was like five different elementary schools all fed into the same middle school. So there were all these kids. And I immediately was like, OK, I have to change everything about myself so that I attract no attention and no one bothers me. And and so wearing like, you know, like a fucking Matrix jacket would mean I would get a lot of attention. And that's not what you want at that age. I also remember in I think it might have been was I in ninth grade?

14:37One kid in my school is around like 2003, like around Matrix sequels time. One kid and think of my Latin class who was, I think, less concerned with just blending in and attract no attention than I was. Yeah, he just he bought like a replica Neo sequel jacket. And I looked at him in school and thought and despite being into those movies, it was just like, nope, I would not do that. Yeah, no, I don't want to be that guy. So, yeah. So, no. And and also the sunglasses that I bought that I like what I thought were like kind of Neo which sunglasses. I I wear glasses. I I can't wear non prescription sunglasses.

15:19And so I got them that I was like, I can I can never wear these because then I can't see. And so I got no use of them. Bye Neo walking down the street. I know. So anyway, there's my long answer to no, I did not wear Matrix inspired clothes. Yeah. Because like if you look at like on the subreddit, I have my favorite blunder years. You can see, you know, our generation of people pulling out these photos when they were like, you know, in big trench coats. Maybe a little hat, you know, it's not Matrix here, but the hat always helps. You know, sunglasses. It's just perfect. I'm so glad we didn't because when we were kids and we were filming our Matrix movies. Oh, yeah. We made three Matrix fan films when we were 13.

15:59Oh, nice. Yeah. And Phil would usually the thing is that no one in my house had a black trench coat, but at your house, I think your dad had one and your mom had one, but I was always stuck with a mom one. I think in our Matrix movies, I'm wearing your mom's black. Yeah. Yeah. Our mom's black coat. Yes. Well, my favorite part is when we made these Matrix movies, and I think I mentioned this before, is that we were so incompetent that we would wear these trench coats, right? The black trench coats. We get that right. Glasses. Glasses were right. Trench coat was right. But we would always wear a stupid white t-shirt underneath. Oh, yes. Oh. And ruin the whole look. Every single time. Without fail. Every time. Every time. And classic sneakers as well.

16:41Yeah. That's the classic thing. I remember in, I think this was, it's when I was in college, but I was home one summer, and I wanted to make like a, I made a spy movie web series. Again, starring my current roommate. Keanu Reeves started a career there. Exactly. Exactly. But, and, you know, this is a thing where I wanted the characters to be kind of adults, even though we're all like 20 years old. And, and, but we, we don't know how to wear suits and stuff like that because we're stupid college students. And, and, and the big thing, and I remember like we, we borrow things from parents and stuff like that. And I would always thought something about these is not quite right. Like the suits, it's like, it's our best attempt.

17:22And then a couple of years later when I like learned how to properly like how to own a suit. Right. Um, I looked back and I was like, Oh, with the problem, with the problem was in all these shots, he's got like a white dress shirt, but then you can see the white, just the t-shirt collar just like underneath. Oh yes. When he has the top button open. It's like, there's always a t-shirt underneath. There's always a t-shirt underneath. That is what gives it away. That's how you can tell it's like a, it's, you know, a, a, an amateur kids production because, because everyone, you know, it just has a t-shirt on underneath and doesn't know how to dress, uh, you know, like, and you can also tell us like, let's make a movie today.

18:02Okay. You know, versus like, let's plan this out. I think, you know, in our Matrix movie, uh, Phil here plays an agent and is wearing his, uh, dad's suit and you were what? 13, 14 at the time. And it's just majorly oversized. It's the most pathetic. It's hilarious. Someday we'll, we'll upload these. Um, and we'll show them off. But right now we're just hinting at them. So someone actually, yeah. Okay. Let's hide those. All right. So anyway, here we are. Yeah. Uh, minute 49 is here and, uh, this is what happens in minute 49. Many hours later, Tank is still uploading programs into Neo's mind as he trains.

18:44Morpheus arrives to check on him and challenges him to a sparring match inside an ancient virtual dojo. Within, Morpheus tells him about the program and they both begin to fight. So I just wanted to mention, uh, as I always begin these, uh, there's this transitionary scene. It's like a montage scene because we have the classic fades. And, um, so Tank is really acting like it has been 10 literal hours. And I, I honestly thought because he learned jujitsu so fast, I thought that it really wasn't 10 hours, but I guess it was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. I guess so. Um, I like how many programs does Neo need? Do we know he learned jujitsu? Yeah. I don't think it was.

19:25Does he say, I know jujitsu? Well, at the beginning. Yeah. The first program. He's just like, he's going to learn it. But then I think it's implied that he has then learned it. Yeah. Oh, okay. Cause I thought it's maybe like one section of it. Like, you know, he's just given him, because as you can see right now, Neo doesn't do the, you know, the crampy face. He's already like learning that. That's okay with him. Like he knows how to control the face. So that was like the first sample for Neo. Like, and then he's just like, okay, that's like 10% of jujitsu now. Like learn the whole thing. Not even 10%. That's what I thought. If it was 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah. You do have to wonder. Yeah. I mean, he's learned a lot of fighting styles and in 10 hours, but it's also, you know, jujitsu seemed to take like five seconds to learn.

20:07How much does he must, I guess he knows all the fighting styles in the world. Yeah. That's what I'm wondering. And then also just skills like cooking and, uh, I don't know, you know, skills, by the way. He's a great basketball player now. Probably. Yeah. I guess, you know, if you can, why not? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. Like, yeah, all the like sort of physical things would be, would be great. It's a good partner. Don't you wish there was a scene where they just went into the matrix and like played sports just like for fun. Dude. The Neb crew versus like some other crew from another ship. I got another Capri Sun commercial for you. Yes. Yes. Look, I mean, I mean, you know.

20:47I know basketball. Yes. As much as I'm, I'm against, uh, like, uh, them like rebooting or like re doing a new matrix movie. Uh, if, if they had that scene, if they just had, you know, some like crews on ships, like hanging out, like, yeah. Yeah. Like playing, uh, just playing sports against each other. That would. So possible. That would be so great. Like, why wouldn't they do that? Cause that would be a different dimension of the world. Right. It would. But, but also, you know, that's the kind of thing that's, uh, sort of in the way that they have, you know, like, uh, are there, there's like a billion, you know, star Wars spinoff, like novels and comic books and stuff like that. Just exploring different, you know, facets of the world.

21:29It adds depth to this fictional world when, you know, it was like, you know, you have a sense of the characters lives outside of just the mission. Yeah. The fact that they seem, you know, like, just like, what do they do in their spare time? Uh, you know, what else is there, is there there other than just like sitting and thinking and then maybe staring at code? Yeah. Right. It's been a while since I saw the animatrixes, but isn't there one, or it's in the comics where there's like an athlete who kind of abuses the power of the matrix and then like a bunch of agents like follow him because they find out that he's cheating or something like that. World record. That's the one where, isn't, isn't that he's like, he's just like a, he's a regular person inside one of the pods, but that he goes, he like runs so fast, he like beyond human

22:14limits and just kind of like breaks free, like from the, uh, yeah, from the, uh, the programmed reality of the matrix. Yeah. And then it's horrified and it's like, what's going on? And, uh, like, what is this? And, uh, I haven't watched it in years. I think, yeah. Then he gets, uh, sedated and put back to sleep. Right. And there's other things like in the Animatrix where, you know, in, uh, what is it? Final flight of the Osiris. Uh, there's the thing where two people on the ship are kind of just having fun, having like their little sexy sword fight. Oh yeah. Sexy sword fight. Sexy sword fight is hilarious. Yeah. But, but, and right there, you know, it's, that's not really training. They're kind of having fun. Yeah. That's a good point.

22:54Why, why does all the fun have to be fighting in dojos? That's true. Why can't they be like, let's play soccer? Yeah. I think, I think mouse has pretty much all those special cards somewhere hidden away of all the crazy, awesome fun besides the red woman. But he probably has like video games and all sorts of stuff programmed in there. Why don't they just, cause since they did make some matrix comics, like way back in like 2001 or whatever, why don't they just do like a, an anthology collection? That's like, you know, mouse's files where it's, you know, things like, like what did, you know, what are the different fun little things that, that mouse created, you know, to like, he was the only one who seemed to have any sense of enjoyment at all.

23:38Yeah. Like, yeah. I can't imagine Switch and Apoc and Trinity, like smiling and having fun. That's right. That's so sad. Yeah. I think, sorry, go on. No, no, no, no, go ahead. Um, I just think that the, it's unfortunate that because the matrix is, um, um, grasp on pop culture kind of like really stopped really quickly after the sequels. Um, it's, so it became very underutilized when it came to expanding the, the, the universe of like the story and doing different, um, offshoots like they would have done with like what they do with like Warhammer and what they do with, uh, Star Wars in particular and stuff

24:18like that. Right. And also, you know, even when like before it kind of dropped out of like, uh, you know, being like super relevant to popular culture, the Wachowskis did pretty much oversee or create everything themselves. So, uh, so yeah, so I mean, and, and, you know, their time was limited, but, uh, but it would be cool to just, you know, just expand the world and, uh, see more aspects of it. I would just love for them to give me a reason to care about anything in Zion. I know, I know, I know. Yeah. How about like a rave scene? That sounds good. Yeah. A slow motion rave scene with a lot of sweat. Stellar Knight, like water, whatever the hell was dripping on them.

25:00I don't know. That's what they do for fun. They just dance. Yeah. Yeah. Very relatable. Well, I wanted to say like, speaking of Zion, I wanted to say this last episode, but, uh, you touched on a good point that like Zion really isn't interesting. And I think one of the reasons why it isn't interesting for me is because I feel like they took the route of sort of like a refugee city type thing. It is sort of that sort of, you know, kind of, it doesn't have too much character, I think. And I always imagine like when Tank says, you know, Zion, the last free city or whatever, you know, the last place they have left. Yeah. The first time before the sequels came out, I always imagined that Zion was something more maybe, you know, like it already has some characteristics of some futuristic stuff,

25:41like, you know, bits and pieces of the past, but it's also, you know, run down. Yeah. I imagined it like. I never imagined it like it was in the sequels. Yeah. I imagined it like, um, uh, the future of Terminator with Kyle. Oh, seriously? Yours is the total opposite. Oh, just like, like rat burkers. Yeah. With the rats. What is that movie? The, what's that movie with, um, Wesley Snipes? And, uh. Stallone? Stallone. Demolition Man? Demolition Man. Yeah, yeah. Remember there's like cooking rat burgers underground? Oh, yeah. The, the people who are not worthy of the, of the elite. But yeah, Zion definitely. And I think there's like a weird dichotomy there. There's like a, the entrance, there's like a super futuristic, or that's the matrix.

26:25Okay. So I forgot. No, no, no. Because they're flying into those like fake matrices, right? They'll. I guess. Yeah. Because they have that super clean white. Yeah. High tech stuff. Yeah. Almost like THX 1138 kind of, you know. Just like, you know, a place where. I think that's the contract. Yeah. Yeah. The construct stuff. The contracts. They forgot about that. Everything's so clean. But yeah. Yeah. The people that they connect with when they're, they're arriving. And, um. Honestly, like, I, I can't remember too much about what I thought Zion would be like. I don't, I'm not sure it was like too dissimilar from what it was. I think my, my issue is less with, uh, just like the, the visualization of it or just how it, but, and, uh, and more just everyone there sucks.

27:09Yeah, they do. Like. Go ahead. You continue. Oh, it's like, like, like the council of Zion sucks. They're just boring. The, uh, you know, uh, any relatives of, of characters there are just boring. The kid sucks. Yeah. And, uh, it's just that it's the thing is, you know, if these people had, you know, personalities. He was all right. Who? The old guy? Yeah. Oh, he was probably the most fun. Yeah. From all those people. He'd probably be. And, and yet he still just got, has like really long conversations about the nature of control and stuff like that. It's like, yeah, they're just, but that's also part of the thing with the matrix.

27:50And, um, in that everyone is very emotionally closed off and, um, which is a little odd when you, when you think of, you know, cause the Wachowskis in their other stuff, you know, write, you know, people who actually, you know, can express emotions and, you know, talk more like human beings. But, uh, but yeah, it's hard to think now just like what, just with the style of that, where everyone, you know, is like very reserved. I wonder what they were thinking with that, because it's definitely more prevalent, I think in the second and third, especially with our main characters. Yeah. You and Trinity, they're very, you know, serious. Very serious.

28:30They don't have a lot of sense of humor. And you missing people like Tank. Like, I mean, I guess you have some Zion people, but they're not really, yeah, they're very depressing and very forgettable looking. Do you guys think... There's Link, Harold Parano's character. True. Who's probably the most relatable person in either of the sequels. Yeah. He's like, cracks jokes and he's like Superman thing and all that stuff. Right. Do you guys think that in the Matrix, like, oh, in the Zion, that like kids who are like, oh, our parents are having those stupid raves again. You know, like when you have like a county fair and you're like, old people go there and then they have like their little illegal raves where they jack into like the construct and have their crazy own parties in there. Like, I'll program this crazy world.

29:11I want to see more of that. I want to see what the kids are doing. Yeah, let's see that. Because they're like, our parents rejected the Matrix, but we accept it. Oh, look at that. Rebels. That would be really interesting. Indeed. Yeah. And I think, again, like, you know, one of the big issues with just like the Zion stuff in the sequels is just that, because the thing is, the first Matrix has so much momentum, like narratively, you know, things are always moving forward. There's always a sense of like what's at stake or what their goals are. And when you get to like the second one, it's a lot of standing around, talking about just concepts. And there isn't that driving sense of purpose all the time.

29:53And so, and I think like my, not to turn this into a conversation only about the sequels, but my big issue with the sequels, I think like stepping back from even like how they are as movies is just that because they, it was so ambitious to like make the two together that the same care and, and like obsessive attention to detail that made the first one so good isn't really there. Like they did not like take as long, as many years to work on the scripts, you know, making them like they weren't able to, because it was so massive, they couldn't, you know, put the same care into like every single shot, like just the general style.

30:36There's a lot more standard coverage of like, yeah, we'll get a wide shot and then the close ups, then like, well, like every bit of like camera movement and care and blocking with the actors in the first one is so precise and so interesting. And so, you know, maybe if they had just taken a couple more years and made the two movies separately, uh, cause I still think there's, there's great concepts in there and, uh, maybe they, they could have made Zion more interesting and not just a place where the story just grinds to a halt for half an hour. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then there's the big war and that like, yeah. Um, completely blanked out on that one. Yeah. I, I hate having to, uh, segue this, but, uh, there's that minute to get back to it. Yeah. There's, um, there's the first Matrix film.

31:21It's pretty cool. I like, I like things in it. I like this scene. It's pretty awesome. This is actually a great scene and we're getting some, uh, Kung Fu. Yeah, that's right. Let's get into that. So what I wanted to say about this was I just wanted to say that, um, so Neo's getting the hang of this thing now. Um, he's in, he's in there training, you know, training his mind. And, and I love that little detail of the beads of sweat he's got there in the closeup when the camera, uh, does a little dolly move and, uh, you can see him and it just, and then the music stops. He's like, I know Kung Fu. And we have Morpheus here. And this is one of the best like deliveries both for, on both of them, in my opinion. Like he just does it little like lean in.

32:04Show me. It's great. And then touching his little beard, like, you know, the little. Yeah. He's a little chin. It's very comfy sort of environment. It's so good. It's like, it reminds me of my brother's like when I was a kid and he would be on the computer like late night and, you know, for reference, Tim's brother is like, uh, what 17 years older. Yes. Yes. And I would just come up and he would be working on the computer and just reminds me of this scene, like Tang and Morpheus looking at the screens and it's fine. He's doing something important. I don't know what it is, but like, you know, I want to see. Show me. Exactly. Exactly. And it's just like, just like you said in the video that you made, Patrick, uh, the scene transitions like, like that. Gong.

32:44It's so efficient. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah. Just show me. Boom. We're there. And he's showing him. And he immediately starts talking. This is a sparring program. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with the hand motion. It's very important that the, that the flash is white because the last time we were in a construct, it was all white. So I think this is a little subtle reference for the people watching it kind of, you know, because it flashes to white. So you're immediately reminded. I want to ask about that. Yeah. It's a construct. And then it goes back to this. So you're assured you have the point of reference. Okay. We're in the construct and you're done. You know, he doesn't go, this is the program you were here. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's your guts out. Right.

33:25You know? Yeah. It's like, it's subtle and it works. It definitely works. I don't think anyone was confused. Maybe some old grandma, but there's a shorthand now where it's like, we've seen it once. We understand the visual vocabulary of the movie. And so, so yeah, so it's like, great. Like just simply just the presence of white and we know how it works. Yeah. We can get right into it. Yeah. This movie wastes no time. Yeah. That's what I love about it. Yeah. It's really great. So Philip, you're saying he gets into talking. What does Morpheus tell us? Well, he says this is a story. I love his chest hair. It's perfect. It's like Johnny Bravo circles. Yeah. His chest hair is quite, quite something.

34:06Magnificent. Can we first mention, I just love the visual style of the opposite colors. Oh yes. On the, the costume design. Oh yeah. That's just a great visual element. And I think it goes more. The Jedi and the Sith. Also, Neo's white belt. Yes. That's what I was going to talk about. Yeah. Like he, like Morpheus has the black belt. Neo has the white belt. And. Which is stronger. Well, because it's just parallel, paralleling, you know, apprentice master. Oh. Is that how it works? The black belt is like the. No, I don't know. I'm just saying. The black belt is. Yeah. I mean, as someone who took karate for like a few months in first grade. Yeah. Just like, you know, a black belt is like the best. And a white belt is your starting.

34:48It's the first one. Exactly. So. Really? Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. It's like, I don't know what the order is beyond that. It's crazy colors like brown and green and stuff. Do you go through the rainbow? I think at my karate place it went like yellow was the second one. I think I stopped when I was a yellow belt. Yeah. But having him with the white belt, I just think is a really funny, cool move. Yeah. Coincidentally, I took judo when I was in third grade for about a month or two. And so we had the same kind of thing going as well. Yeah. I think all those things have like a kind of similar belt system. Yeah. Probably. And the camera wonderfully moves into Morpheus as he keeps talking.

35:29I think the cinematography reflects a lot more of like how much more fun you're going to have now. You know, because like we talked about in the previous episode, things are just lightening up. And we're able to witness what being in this virtual reality actually means and, you know, what possibilities there are. That's great. And the color changes to a very sort of like golden hour sunset. I mean, I don't think we've seen that so far in this movie. Everything was either the matrix green or the blue of the real world. And this is warmer. Yeah. A lot warmer. Yeah. It's I mean, this scene, I also love that, you know, really, what do you think about it?

36:12This is this is pretty much, you know, the Wachowski's just being like, let's just make like, let's let it become a straight up martial arts movie. Yeah. 10 minutes. Yeah. It's just it's just it's them indulging themselves, but also in a way that that works narratively because it also it teaches us a lot about, you know, it's showing, you know, Neo's progression. And and stuff like that shows how he's learning stuff. We learn stuff during the scene. And but but yeah, but also it's great because it's just, you know, sorry, I had to buzz the mailman in the door.

36:52Wow. Multitask. Yeah. I'd step outside for a second. But but yeah, but it's also just like, hey, you know, there's been a lot of exposition. There's been a lot of just like talking about various things, learning new things, sitting in the real world. Let's just have it become a kung fu movie now. Yeah, let's do it. Just kung fu movie all the way. The score is there to accompany that very well with all the percussion. And yeah. And Morpheus, he gives a little lesson about, you know, this is the Matrix and you can do whatever the hell you want, actually. Oh, yeah. You need to learn this. And he says the sentence that I'm not a native speaker. So I want to ask you guys what how you understand it, because I was always confused by it because he says some rules can be broken.

37:37Some rules can be bent. Like what's the difference between the like in the in the context of Matrix? What does it mean breaking a rule? And what does it mean bending a rule? I would I mean, I don't mean to cut in here. No, please go ahead. My definition would be bending a rule is like doing like that jump that Morpheus does. That's like an impossible, a physically impossible, really big jump. Yeah. OK. That would be bending a rule. Gravity still applies, but he's bending it a bit. Breaking it would be when Neo flies at the end. Yes, I agree. Yeah. OK. OK. Nice. So that's the end game. Like you. So bending, you're basically extending the reach of a certain ability within a limit.

38:18But breaking a rule would be exactly like cheating. It would be cheating. Cheating. There you go. Cheating. God mode. Max. That's right. God mode on. No clip. Yeah. And so now with their they strike their poses. And I just have to say this wide shot is the best. This wonderful wide shot. Oh, it's so good. Bill Pope through this entire movie just kills it. Yeah. I think in my opinion, this is Bill Pope's best shot film. In my opinion. There's a screenshot, guys, for the episode. Look at that. The wide shot with Neo's like a crane. Oh, yes. Yeah. And the light streak coming from the top. That looks beautiful. Yeah. I don't even want to start the whole conversation about Bill Pope's best shot film because he

39:02has actually, maybe more than any cinematographer, shot so many of my favorite movies. He's, well, he's had long runs working with three of my favorite directors. And so, and so he's just made a lot of movies that I love. Yeah. And I think he's brilliant. Better not start talking about Spider-Man because I'm going to start. I'm starting to get on walking out of this room. No, I'm just joking. I'm just kidding. I like Spider-Man. Which movie? Spider-Man 2, I think, is the best superhero movie ever made. That's just me. I love Spider-Man 2. I agree. I kind of agree with you. I'll go get some water. No, no, it's fine. Tim is a Spider-Man hater. Tim doesn't understand. He doesn't understand. I understand. I was obsessed with The Matrix.

39:43Spider-Man was not a thing of my time. You do two different things, Tim. No. There's more than one movie. I was too serious. I was a serious boy. Yep. You're taking it seriously. Yeah. Anyway. I don't have time for these children's tales when I was a child. Can we also talk about... People can only wear black. No colors. Yeah, no colors. Exactly. Everything has to be monochrome. I would just like to point out that I love the juxtaposition of Morpheus being slow, sure of himself, the master. Not necessarily that he's reached some kind of pinnacle level, but you can tell he's experienced and he knows what to look for. He's in control. Neo, of course, is a novice, so he comes up and he's doing these crazy, wacky, speedy moves, which doesn't mean he'll be better.

40:24No. And that's why I always loved how they parallel that. It's really nice. Yeah, we can talk about that in the next... We will. I just wanted to mention because they started out with their opening greetings. Yeah. Yeah. That's some katanas in the back. I hope they get to use that in the next minute. Maybe we'll find out. Oh, if only. Slice and dice. But I think it... We were talking about this in an earlier episode. I keep saying this sentence. This is starting to lose meaning. It's okay. But we were saying, why do you think that... What was it about Neo that Morpheus saw besides the work of telling about it? What do you think? That he's special. But I think in this scene, we can see what it is. Because Neo in the real world, Mr. Anderson, doesn't strike me as a sort of like a sports type. So I don't think he had much experience in the martial arts or anything like that.

41:06But we can see right away, he has the knowledge and he's already sort of improvising and already having fun with it of the knowledge. And I think he in the real world did it with programming or hacking, but he's very sort of curious about things and he knows how to enjoy new information and how to use it. And you can see it in the style that he's already enjoying. And I don't think that he'd maybe be a Kung Fu fan. It's just that sort of mindset. The approach and the mindset. I think that's what makes Neo special. And that's probably why Morpheus, you know, picked it. Personally, I think he picked Neo because he just looked at his username and was like, wait a second. If you rearrange the letters, he might be the one.

41:49That would be an amazing scene. That's like his last call. He's like, I've been doing this for 20 years. What is it? What is it? And I was like, that's good enough. We're going with this guy. Yeah. Do you think there's anything else though besides that, of course, obvious solution? Yeah. Obvious Neo. About why he... Yeah. Like what is... He picked him? What are some qualities or what are some things that... Yeah. Qualities of Neo that reveal him to be someone who could potentially be the one. It's hard to say other than that, like, you know, because we don't know much about... Yeah. ...how he found the other people. That's true. And because really, it just... It seems like Neo just kind of spent a lot of his time trying to find Morpheus. Mm-hmm.

42:30And that seemed to be his main thing. Mm-hmm. Like, beyond anything else, just like trying to find out more about these people. And also, I mean, he clearly owns a copy of Simulation and Simulacra. Oh, no. So I guess, you know, they were like, hey, we have similar tastes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. It's like... And also, like, why everyone else before him? Why'd they get Cypher before him? What was Cypher? Well, you know what's interesting about that? There's a little bit of that in the 1996 script. Ooh, can we go to that? No, because that's in the Cypher scene. Oh, okay. No, Jacob. Do we have some 996 for this?

43:11You know what? Unfortunately, no. Like, it's all pretty similar in this case. Oh, so they had this in 996 already. Everything locked. Yeah. This dojo fight isn't happening, and Morpheus is also saying, like, so let me tell you about why I picked you. Oh, if only, right? Yeah. That's what the scene needs more exposition. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it needs. While he's fighting him. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He looked into your eyes, and he's punching him. You were beautiful, and your username was Neo. It's great. It's an anagram of one, which is exactly why I thought this was you. Yeah. Sorry, this is now kind of haunting me. Like, what? I love this movie, and I've never thought about this before, but, like, why was Neo special before this? Like, why was he any different than all the other people when all he was doing was hacking

43:54and not sleeping and selling illegal computer programs to Troy? Oh, yeah. Troy. I think we figured out it was a Rob Zombie song. That's what I'm sticking with. Yeah. Oh, it had the Rob Zombie song that they played in the club, and he's the man you hook up. No. He goes to... He goes to... It's some kind of erasy program of records that Troy doesn't want, like criminal records or something. Yeah. In the 1996 script, it was actually just so he can cheat some parking voucher. Or the parking ticket or something. Yeah. You should check out the script. Yeah, you should check that out. Troy explains what he needs. See some magical things. Yeah. So, basically, there's a lot of stuff that was cut for a reason.

44:35Oh, yes. You can actually read this, and you can see how... For a very good reason. You can see how nicely they ironed it out in the final one. Yeah. It tidied it up so well. Anyway, a lot of that stuff in the script, it's fine. Nothing's necessarily wrong with it, but there's no need. There's no need to have it in there. Right. You just cut it, and it moves faster. Exactly. So, anyway, yeah, that seems to be the minute, to be honest. I think so, yeah. I think so. Yeah. Well, thank you once again for listening. It's been a wonderful Wednesday, and I hope we've fulfilled that spot in your Wednesday, fellow listener. Well, not fellow. I mean, I guess I listen to this sometimes, but you know what I mean. And I want to thank Patrick for being here once again, and sharing with us all of the

45:20words of wisdom that he has for us. It's been a pleasure, as always. Thank you so much, Patrick. And you can find us on ask at thematrixminute.com, .1, .1, which is our email, and you can email us if you don't feel like writing a comment on the Facebook page, or the announcement post, which is on thematrixminute, all one word, on Facebook. And we have a Twitter at thematrixminute. And, yeah. Oh, we haven't plugged our personal ones in a while. Okay. We haven't done that. What's yours? Mine's at Phil Dragish. Mine's at Jake Dragish. Oh, nice. I don't post anything on Twitter, so just look me up on Instagram.

46:00It's Timo Meyersky. Cool. And Patrick, you can find him on? You can find all my work at youtube.com slash Patrick H. Willems. And I'm on all the social medias at Patrick H. Willems. Very nice. Brilliant. Sweet. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And we'll catch you on Friday. Friday. Bye.