Minute 61: “All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head.”

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 everything from rodents to reptiles. Wait, that's the wrong channel. This is about the Matrix. That's the Lizard Minute. No, we're talking about bicorns and tricorns and six-corns and heptacorns and optacorns. That's what we do. Everything that's in every minute of the Matrix, I try to find out a way that we could talk about it. Hi, I'm Phil. Welcome back. Welcome. We missed you. Yes, we are here now and forever. Hi, Tim. You are who? You are who? I am Timor. I am Jake. And I'm Wisconsin. Phil already introduced himself. I don't remember. Yeah, yeah. I'm Philly.

0:40Philly. Philly cheese. The man. And we are on Minute 61. You want to see what happens in 61? Well, I'll tell you right now what happens in 61. Getting you right into business. People on Wednesdays, it's in the middle of the week. Put it in my ear. You got to just do things and get down to work. The Sentinel scans the area and leaves, finding nothing. The wide shot of Trinity, Dozer, Neo, and Morpheus as they sign relief fades out. And we are brought into another scene where Cypher is messing around on the big control center in the middle of the night. Neo approaches him and they have a talk about the Matrix. Cypher tells Neo that even though you can only see the Matrix encoded, if you get used to it, you don't even see the code. All you see is blonde, brunette, redhead, and that's it.

1:23That's literally the quote that finishes this minute. Okay, so let's get into what happens at the beginning of this minute because there's this big close-up of the giant Sentinel looking through into the pipe with the little radar thing that he's using. The broccoli steamer. I always thought it was a broccoli steamer too. It's looking for some satellite channels. It's like, I want to watch HBO. But the question is like, why can't the Sentinel see them if it's looking right at them with its little radar? Because Morpheus has a hat. That's what I thought. I thought everybody's quiet. They're like holding their breath or something and everything's fine. Well, Morpheus was holding his breath. He was breathing like a psychopath there.

2:04With his mouth open. My theory has always been that the Sentinel just mistook it for another remnant from the destroyed cities. Sure. Sure. I'll be like, oh, it depends what it's searching for. Is it searching for like an engine? If it's searching for life forms, like, you know, like if it had like an infrared, you would see the heat signature of them. Maybe the Emek and Ezra has anti-heat detection. Well, okay. Anti-heat glass? Yeah, who knows? Who knows? Yeah. I mean, I don't think it matters. Morpheus has anti-heat berets, so it protects them. The more important thing to talk about is the fade at the end of the scene.

2:44It is the sitcom. The fade to commercial break. Yeah. It's a cheesy master shot and it just fades and you see them all kind of... I love how they look at each other. Yeah, yeah. Sighing in relief. You know, like they ran out of those cool transitions. So far, everything's been a cool transition. Now it's just like, ah, screw it. It's just a fade in there. It's just a fade out. And it's... I'm really wondering, like, Zach Steinberg, is that all he had to edit with? Like, that's just the only shot. I think Patrick Willems who mentioned this transition. Oh, yeah. Sometime. This is the multibetra. Patrick. Patrick, I know you're not listening, but you should listen to this episode. I'm going to send it to you personally. See? There's me talking about sending it to you because I sent it to you.

3:25Wonderful. I sent it to you. Let's talk a little bit about the sentinel, though. But then it fades back in. Oh, yeah. Well, that's okay. The fade in was nice. Oh, yeah. You know, you gotta... If you fade out, you gotta fade in. I mean, that's... Well, you don't... One can't live without the other. No, no. If you don't have commercials, yeah. You know, but then you have to have a jingle. So... Establish a shot of the Nebuchadnezzar and then you cut to, you know, Cypher. We should re-edit this as a sitcom. What were you saying, Phil? Why are we talking about the sentinel again? We talked about it. Because he's right there, full force. What is there to say about him? Well, I just want to say that he was designed by Jeff Darrow. He was obviously inspired by deep sea creatures. And according to the Animatrix, the sentinels were originally built as, like, construction units.

4:08And later retrofitted to become military units when they started planning. So they used to be maintenance and repair machines until the human-machine war. And, you know, they're apparently now just used to patrol the sewers and subway systems of Morpheus's hat. So how come they... What's the secret? How come they haven't found Zion yet? Because they're not very good at their job, apparently. I guess Zion is that secret. They're just construction workers, I guess. They're like... But now they're search-and-destroy creatures that are just patrolling the sewers. Well, then it's a lie. They're not built for one thing. They're built for building and seek and destroy.

4:48Yeah. I know. The one thing is... So it's three things. According to the Animatrix. But you can speculize. Specularize. Speculize. Speculate all you want in this one. But you know, also, remember Access Code's design's mainframe. Something that has to do with their... I think they have some kind of stuff encrypted that obviously the machines can't decrypt. But they can still kill everyone. They can, but maybe it's so secret, like Phil said, that they need to find out through this software or whatever data where they're located. Yeah. I have not thought about this. That's such crap. Access Code's to the Zion mainframe? Well, we'll talk about that. Wait, Philip. Don't you shush me today. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. I shush me.

5:28Tense dwelling bastard. They want to get in the mainframe because they'll give them all the data they want to understand everything. Where it is. How they function. What's going on. That kind of thing. That's what I think. How they... Like what? On the Wi-Fi? Is that the mainframe or on the Wi-Fi? Sure. It doesn't matter where it is. But the point is it's encrypted. That means that the machines can't decrypt it unless they have the access codes. But how would they get to it if they don't know where it is? Oh, you mean the actual data? The actual place. Does every ship hold the data for the Zion? They're going to capture Morpheus. I'm saying there's multiple ways to probably get into it. They probably know where the mainframe is. Hosted. Hosted. Okay, we'll talk about this. The machines are hosted. We'll talk about this later when we have more time. We don't have much time today. I'm not both shushing you.

6:10Yeah. I just wanted to say that the problem... The only problem I have with the Sentinels being in the second two movies is that they became kind of the primary soldier unit for the machines. And I feel like it would have been probably a lot better if there were different machines made for, you know, the big Matrix revolutions. Yeah. Instead of the Sentinels being everything. Because, you know, in the second and third one, it's just... It's like a sea of them, right? Yeah, because I thought the Sentinels were only one kind of robot and there might have been tens. I know. I would have loved to have seen it. I can't believe that they missed out on such an opportunity. A variety of... Especially when they wasted it on those big, giant battle ships that they show... They show when Neo's approaching the machine city and where do those... I don't understand.

6:50Yeah. Whatever. This is not the Matrix of Lodon. You know, but there's... Because in this movie, you know, when you show the farms, there's like zillion kinds of robots. Where are those? Where's the Doc robot? He needs to stab someone with his needle. Yeah. I would have loved to have seen that. It would be helpful, especially for the... Doc bot. Doc bot. Anyway, let's... As it fades out, there's that great shot. The great shot we can see is berate and it's gone now. It'll never be anymore in the movies, unfortunately. Sad. An ode to... Oh, and Mrs. Beret. That beret. Nice dolly. We get to Cypher and here we are. Cypher's doing some late light. That's a cool shot, though. He's doing some late night messing around. We go through between the legs of a robot and we come to Cypher.

7:32Yes. Oh, yes. There we go. With as many cables. Yeah. Great lighting. I love the lighting. I love the cables and Neo walks in and... Whoa! Right? Yep. Whoa! And this is kind of like the last section of setup until we get to the second part of the Matrix where the actual plot starts. Isn't that weird? Mm-hmm. Because this... More or less, everything was just kind of teaching Neo and teaching the audience about the world. And it's amazing that you can spend almost like an hour, you know, getting people to listen to exposition of how the world works if you execute it creatively. Yeah. Yeah. Creatively.

8:12I'm so bad at talking today. Philip. Philip. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I won't complain. I'm sorry, audience. I'm sorry. I know you don't. There's none of this. There's none of this. This isn't your Facebook, Philip. Okay. So Cypher's... Cypher... Okay. So Cypher's monitors. Do you see those monitors? They have some stuff going on. They have some stuff going on. Many secrets. Cypher really... There's a room. Again, he's like... You know... The Star Wars cantina. Where? I don't know. What is that? Next is Neo? I just want to say that Cypher just switches off the monitors. He doesn't want Cypher... Neo to see anything. There's secrets. But before he switches off the monitors, if you look at him, he goes, whoa! And then when he says his line, you scared the... But she's out of... He's looking behind Neo if someone else is here.

8:54Because, you know, Neo's a new guy. It's okay. He won't figure it out. But he's still like... He's talking to him, but he's checking out... Is Morphe here? Or anyone who can actually figure out what I'm doing? He's like, oh, it's just Neo. It's fine. I can deal with this butthole. That's so true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little subtle stuff going on. That's really good. Oh, oh, oh. Before he turns off the monitors, look at the wide shot. You can see he's turning on one of the... No, he's not because I checked. Look, you can see the other monitors. Oh, so each monitor has one of the persons. So he's not turning on. Maybe he's just looking at them. And there's on the right, all the way on the right, there's a plug on the monitor for some reason. There's like a speed internet tester.

9:36You know, he's checking. Wi-Fi's clear enough. Yeah. Especially since they're probably still in that hole that they hid in while the Sentinel was browsing around. On the right? But wait. Wait. Let's talk about this. In the future... Well, okay. So, spoilers. He's being a rat, right? Yeah. A dirty, filthy rat. And he's, I guess, what he's doing, he's trying to connect already right now? He wasn't... Yeah, that's the question. I was going to ask you guys that. Do you think this is when Cypher already did the deal and is going to bed? Or do you think he's going to do it now? You know, because he's going to go and meet Agent Smith.

10:16Yeah. I mean, for continuity, I guess this would be before. Like, he's setting it up. Maybe he's talking to me. He's chatting. Yeah. On, you know, the IRC chat. He's like, roll sup. Stuff like that. When, where do we meet? What time? Can we get steak? And Agent Smith's like, no, I'm a fish guy. No, I'm a fish guy. Like, no, but I want steak. I've been eating this goddamn goop every day. Yes. That's probably how it went. And it, you know, it's just a text chat, right? Just... Yeah. It's the matrix chat. Yeah. Type it as it flies. And his username is Judas26.

10:57Perfect. Perfect. So, so, what I like about this is that Cypher is, you know, super down to earth as well. Like, it gives, you know, it gives us a chance to see the plot in some kind of more relatable emotional way instead of how Morpheus was. He's all like high and mighty and Trinity's very exposition-y. And Mouse is sort of similar, but Cypher's kind of like, hey man, what's up? Here's the matrix. Yep. There's the matrix. He's not only the pessimist, but he's the guy who's like, this is all pocus pocus stupid stuff. Yeah, he's like Han Solo. Han Solo in Star Wars, which makes the sci-fi stuff work, I think, sometimes.

11:38And he's like... It's a character that helps you. Because he's not on board with all this stuff. He's just like... He's also the average, you know, he talks normally. He talks like a normal person. He's relatable. So, it's a good trick if, you know, in this case, he is the Judas. It's a good trick to audience to, you know, for a second. He is acting a bit freaky, but you might just think, ah, he's just like, you know, he's a skeptical kind of guy. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It doesn't have to be evil. So, we get to see the... We're properly introduced to the matrix code here. What do you think about that? Like, we actually get to see it on a monitor. I don't think we have had that chance. I think there was a couple times when we saw it. Well, like, they actually addressed it, though. On the beginning, the intro was... Well, yeah, but I mean, on a monitor... Yeah. Front and center.

12:18Yeah. And he was like, is that it? The Matrix? Yes, it is. Oh, the Matrix. Yeah. I like it so much more on these CRD monitors, like the low frame rate. It looks much more believable than, like, any sort of high frame rate, like in the sequels or at the end of this movie, where you can see it, like, on full-on the code. Ah, yeah, you're right. You're right. It's just too... It's too sprinkly. It's too... I like this. This reminds me of, like, you know, an actual code. That's right. I agree. Yeah, it's much more realistic, I guess. I'm missing words. I'm not good with words. I suck. I'm going to turn to Phil. So anyway... I talk like a peasant. Don't turn into Phil. So anyway, while we see the codes,

12:59they're talking about exactly what... Not only what the Matrix is, but Cypher is explaining that you can't actually see anything on the monitors, right? Like, it's just the pure code. It's not... What's the word? Encoded? Decoded? Decoded? Like, you know... Hello? Yes? Hello? Decoded? Or what's the word they're talking about? Yeah, he says there's too much information to decode the Matrix. So they can't do the video feed, like we talked about earlier, of the whole Matrix. They don't have, like, a program that reads all the information and graphically shows it. There's too much information. Yeah. So he's just saying you have to kind of, I guess, play it by ear. I don't know how that works, but I guess it would be like any sort of language,

13:41coding language. You can look at it and see what's happening. Yeah, I think what he's saying, like, everyone's like, like, you know, that line is sort of in a meme, or, you know, it's like used to illustrate coders. Like, oh, you know, coders are good. Like, they're exactly like Cypher here. They just look at the code and they already see what it is. But I think that's impossible because, first of all, if there's so much information, so a computer can decode it into like an actual graphical image, there's no way that information could be displayed on those three monitors. That's impossible. It's not. So I think it's more of they are used to seeing certain kind of patterns. And if those patterns

14:22kind of mess up, it's like, you know, like there's something already ordinary, like usually like this symbol doesn't come after this symbol or something like that. Maybe they see a glitch or something's changed. later with Tank, Well, that's what was treated remember, during the deja vu. He goes, what? He's looking at the code. Yeah. I think it's more of like that, like a visual, like they keep their eye on the code just to see if something out of the ordinary comes, you know, probably. I don't think you can see actual redheads. That's just a joke. It's a nice joke and I think the way that Joey Pants delivers it is very, you can feel it. He's not being serious. He's like, I don't even see the code. I, you know. Yeah. Girls, eh? Am I right? Am I right, Neo? Don't look at my monitor for my Trixie business. Don't look at my monitor

15:03full of Agent Smith pictures. Number one fan, Agent Smith. And I think that, that seems like all of them. There's nothing too much to talk about in this minute to be honest. It's a good minute. There's going to be a lot next week, but this week we're just kind of buffering towards that. Before we get on, I just want to pinpoint the most useless scarf in the world. I know, I wanted to mention that too. Yeah. What is that? What does that do? Like, It's a rag. It's Morpheus' accessory. It's just a rag. He's been, he's been so nervous. He's been like pulling strands out of that scarf and by, by the time, you know, Neo comes, it's just like a rag.

15:43It used to be a scarf back in the day. Maybe it's like a really long sweatband he uses to wipe the sweat off his brow. Oh yeah. Well, he's nervous. Because he's being a Judas. Yeah. Judas sweat. Yeah. Or maybe he's like, he has that, you know, because he goes by himself so nobody can unplug him so he has like a timer and he pulls the rag on the connector and he puts like 30 minutes timer and then it pulls it out of his head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's what it is because, yeah, how would he get out of the Matrix? Yeah, I guess it is a self, self eject. That's one of the good things about movies. If you can't think of, you know, a way how to, how something works in a movie, just don't show it and you'll be fine.

16:24You got people like us guessing. What it could be. All right, all right, all right, all right. All right, all right. Matrix 8.1. Thanks guys. You're the best and Friday is the day we return. Yes. Stay tuned. The Matrix. For more Cypher. For more Cypher. Cypher. Judas 26. Bye.