Minute 7: “We have the name of their next target.”

Transcript

Transcribed automatically from the audio, and imperfect for it — names and punchlines suffer worst. Useful for finding a moment, not for quoting one.

0:00The Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss the first film one minute at a time. I'm Phil, and like I said, I'm sleepy. I, you know, I think those headlights are pretty neat. Those garbage truck headlights, they illuminate a lot. But who's with us as well? I'm Jake, and the things that the agents carry are called earpieces. Earpieces. Earpieces. Yes. I don't have any. I suck. I suck. That's Tim, by the way. Anyway, welcome to Minute... Number seven! Seven. Minute number seven! And, uh, what happens in Minute number seven is...

0:43Tell us, Phil. The agents are unsuccessful at catching Trinity. Smith calmly walks towards the debris of his destruction. The other two approach Smith. The other two agent, that is. The informant is real? Smith mentions getting a search running, even though they missed catching Trinity. The camera oversees the debris, and it moves into the phone. And into the monitor of Thomas A. Anderson with a search on the mysterious Morpheus on his monitors. The minute ends with him asleep at his desk in his room with a close-up of his crappy Panasonic headphones. So, what do you guys think of this minute? Well, the agents are very scary.

1:24They're coming out of the truck. Smith is just nonchalant about this. The whole set piece is destroyed. You know? And there's Trinity. Destroyed? Nobody. Nobody. I don't know. I don't know. Well, here's the thing. The first thing is, for the first viewer, it's like, nobody. She depulverized her. The truck was too powerful for her tender bones. Well, listen, like, as a kid, as a kid, I was afraid when I was watching this. Like, the first, like, when it was showing the debris and all the destruction, I was afraid I was going to see her corpse. I was always like, no, dead buddy. Yeah, because of the scary music and the scary lighting. So, the agents here are, obviously, they realize that Trinity isn't, obviously, dead.

2:07Yeah. Because they go, hmm. Nobody. Nobody. We need to write a search. It's like, that one left, and then Agent Smith is like, it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. We don't want her. It doesn't matter. We don't need her. So, they're still looking for someone bigger than Trinity. And one of the agents, I think Agent Jones says, Agent Jones says, the informant is real. Yeah, I never got that. The informant is real. I never got any of these agent talk ever. Come on, guys. You know the informant. No, I never looked. Judas. Judas. First of all, first of all, first of all, why don't they even talk to each other? They're robots connected to the system. Tim, that wouldn't be a good film. That is absolutely true. They would just be standing there. Why don't they just talk to each other on the earpieces?

2:48But they are doing that. Like, next to each other, just like, psh, psh, psh, psh. It's so cheesy. By the way, speaking of cheese, I just wanted to say, is this foreshadowing Cypher giving them tips? I think you're right. The informant is real. I didn't know. I never even paid attention to the informant. Yeah, I never paid attention. We're watching this minute by minute. Am I actually paying attention to what the agents are saying? It's like, oh, they're actually giving you clues about the plot. Also, there's a little TV there. This hotel room. I've never noticed that. Honestly, I think I have some kind of weird half memory of this movie for some reason. I completely ignored some bits when every time I watched it over and over again, I'm just slowly discovering things. So they also found the next target. The name is Neo. But before we get to that, speaking of cheese.

3:30Yes. These agents, the three of them. Yeah, and that three shot, right? In the wide shot. Looking at it now, I just can't help but laugh. It's so cheesy. Yeah, but when you're watching it, you're just... Well... Because if it was like, let's say it was normal cops, one of them would be bent over and like... Oh, yeah. ...picking up the rocks or looking at the dust. And one of them would be like, we didn't get that. I think the thing is that I'm too used to... When it takes the hat and slams it on the floor. Yes! The fact that... And he turns around and pulls a cigarette. This movie has been parodied so many times. I know. That when you look at these agents standing there, you're thinking, ha! Like, they're doing a parody. It's like, no! This is the real one. This is what it's based off of. This is what it's based off of.

4:10It is true. I think I do agree. There were so many parodies of agents, you know, doing that serious talk and going like, from anywhere from space to scary movie that you just don't take them seriously anymore. It's kind of... Unfortunately, it's tainted the power of how it worked when it came out, I think. True, true. And it's hard to get away from that now because you keep thinking of that. By the way, I just realized that... It's a funny thing. But who's that guy? Carl Sagan, right? That the... Yeah, with the galaxies. That sounds like? Oh, you mean... Carl Sagan? Carl Sagan, the scientist? You mean, he sounds like... Well, that's the funny thing. There was a scientist guy.

4:51Who was it? There was a scientist guy who just talks exactly like that. I think it's Carl Sagan you're talking about. Yeah, I think it's Carl Sagan. But it's not just Carl Sagan. I think what Hugo Weaving was doing in his performance was he was channeling that transatlantic. Oh, yeah, because he said it was an ambiguous accent. Yeah, he tried to do an ambiguous accent. But that's how he started. Australian. But he also said that he implemented, you know, that kind of very neutral... Generic American. Generic American English. Yeah. And then he also said that he imitated the Wachowskis back when they were the Wachowski brothers. I mean, the... And robots. Yeah, and animation. And animation. And so, I can hear some of that.

5:32Yeah. That's what he said. That's pretty cool. So, they need to get a search running, you know? A digital search, of course. Yeah, and he said it's already begun. They already started searching for the target. See, Tim was right. They didn't have talked to each other. They just kind of search in their heads. Of these, you know, Trinity and Morpheus. What are they doing? Well, they mentioned Neo here, too. Yeah. How much are they connected to the agents to the system? I think they wouldn't be... You mean at what level you mean they're connected? I mean, because they had the headpiece in... When I was watching the kid, the movie, I always thought they were like... Watching what? As a kid, you mean? As a kid, I was watching The Matrix. And I was wondering, like, how much are they connected? Because I was... Okay, I got the idea that the programs and actual people, you know, running in The Matrix.

6:14But was their only connection the headpiece? No. You know what? I think that's more for effect. I think that's a symbolic thing. Yeah. I don't think that really is. But remember afterwards, he's like, who doesn't know? Oh. Oh. You know we could do. You know we could do. Yeah. You could assume that they are programs, but they are essentially in human bodies within The Matrix. So hence, maybe they're limited by normal human perception. So that means they have to wear the earpieces like any other person would. Yeah. But they're programs. Nice. I like that. If we go to the crazy theories of The Matrix, remember the theories that Neo is another program because he's not human.

6:54He just imprinted himself into a human. And then how he escaped to the next world. That's how he was able to control the machines in the sequels. Remember that? No. Sure. I don't remember that theory. Like basically, he did the same thing as a Smith. You know, he was just... Neo is human though. It is a possibility because if you think about it, they say, okay, there were many incarnations of the savior, right? Yeah. The one. Just like there was the Oracle or whatever like that. He could be a program. Because Agent Smith in the sequels gets out of the system because he imprints his brain on a real human. Yes. Neo could be the same thing. Neo, just a normal person. Yeah. He's just a normal person. He says that himself. But the program kind of like snatched his brain as using him just like an agent.

7:35And that's how he gets out. Remember Cousine's sequels? He's like controlling machines in the real world. Yeah. Or that could be the case. Or it could be the case that machines are faking that they're being controlled. That's what I always thought. Yeah. That was my longstanding. Because the machines is in their interest to keep Neo. Okay. We're talking about Matrix. That's a bit funny. By the way. That's a bit funny. They're like, oh, we pretend to program the machines. Oh, we have to program quickly. Yeah, we're not allowed to touch Neo. Exactly, yeah. I think it makes sense. The machines aren't letting Neo get damaged because they know that they need him. Well, and also think about this too. We're talking about Matrix Reloaded. We could also assume the machines are very interconnected, like artificial intelligence. Yeah. So it's like one sort of entity in a way as well. But how can they be?

8:16They don't have a headpiece, Jacob. Well, these guys do. They do. And now we see, you know, the rubble. And then we go into the phone. The Bonnie rubble. The Bonnie rubble. So. And then we go to a really weird operating system that has like alien symbols. No, but Tim, you're skipping the amazing transition. The amazing transition. These are transitions that weren't seen. Through the phone. Yeah. Through the zero. Through the phone hole. Through the phone hole. Into the zeros. And once we go through the phone hole and we go to the crazy operating system, there is a movie cliche. One of the tropes. Oh. That don't work in real life. You don't see the actual bloody screen on someone's face. This reminds me of. Oh, I was.

8:56Look, I have the whole section of notes I was going to write. I was going to write. You should have wrote through. No, I wrote it. I wrote it. So like when he was asleep, there's a similar technique used to project computer screen reflections, which is, you know, like what I was going to say and what Tim already mentioned before we recorded. They did in the beginning of Alien where the clothes were being reflected on the helmets, you know, before the Nostromo crew got out of cryosleep. That does not work. Like unless you have a projector pointed at someone's face. I hope that sounds. Do you know, I think if when I was a kid, I probably would have tried that at home. Like, do you see the light on my face? But it's used to connect the fact that this monitor is in front of him and it's like. It's one of those things like movies where somebody pulls out a sword, you can hear like

9:39a shh-ing. And it's one of those things in movies where you don't break the rule, the third degree rule. The third degree rule? You mean the rule where you're not supposed to switch sides? Yeah, you're not supposed to switch sides when people are talking. Yeah. Which the Matrix breaks a few times, which is pretty cool. You're going to see that. Oh yeah, the 180 rule. Yeah, the 180 rule. And also the third rule. Third degree burn rule. Okay. Neo is in front of his computer and his computer is running Encyclopedia Encarta 1992. What a hacker. What kind of operating system is this? Let's pay attention to what's going on on the screen. Well, first let's decide what operating system this is. It's an alien system and that has like a really. It's Neo's hacker machine.

10:19I think it's a movie operating system. Operating system. Yeah. Also, what is happening in the operating system? Why is things animated in it? Because then we can know. Well, it says that it's searching. Is he screen scraping? It's searching. So Neo is actually looking for Morpheus. Yeah. He's searching for that. As you can tell. So I'm going to read you some headlines, okay? Okay. We have Morpheus eludes police at Heathrow Airport. What was Morpheus doing in London? Was he searching for the one? Also, is there a Heathrow Airport in the Matrix? Ooh, that's a good question. Wow. Yeah. Because generally, as we were going through these minutes, you could see it's a city phone and the police have badges saying city police. That's kind of too bad for Heathrow. Because I always like to imagine that the Matrix is really sort of like a video game and

11:02you have like one big city. Well, that's what it's mostly, I think it is. It's just called the mega city. Well, then someone messed up writing Heathrow. Well, not in the sequels because it goes to some bloody mountain. Well, that's probably the mountains at the edge, you know? I would say that's, yeah. I would say that's something on the edge or something. It's cheat coded. That's on the outskirts. You can't get out. He used no clip. It's like the Truman Show. He used no clip. Yeah. I would say it's like the Truman Show. That makes sense. People believe that they're going on vacations in Heathrow. But the funny thing is though, but you know what's funny? They never explained that if this is the case, there is no limitation for the machines to create an identical world to ours. I mean, the machines are writing this newspaper anyway.

11:42Maybe they, you know, they just put this online. Just like. Maybe they're doing it to fool. Like in Truman Show. Yes. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Also, that's a pretty good picture of Morpheus. I like that. Yeah, that is a cool picture. It's very animated. It looks like Ghost in the show. Oh, it does look like an anime. Oh, yeah. That's right. So, it's reminding you about Morpheus again. So, he's kind of important. Well, at this point, we don't really know anything about Morpheus. I think we're really being introduced to Morpheus. And he was talking to Trinity for a little bit. Oh, yeah. In the second or third minute. Something like that. I can't believe I forgot already. We recorded that. Amazing. But, I want to add a little note that this song is a massive attack song.

12:24And I really liked it. But, it wasn't on the Inspired by soundtrack, sadly. That's too bad. It's called Dissolved Girl. Yep. Yep. And, well, Neo's asleep. You know. Philip, tell us about his headphones. His headphones are crappy Panasonic RPHT202 headphones. It's still on sale on Amazon. You can get it for $33. Mm, they're pricey. That's too expensive for... For 1999 technology. So, you too can be a loser hacker, like Thomas Anderson, wasting his days eating Captain Crunch and listening to Massive Attack. Also known as CDs. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story. So, a couple of years after The Matrix was released, my brother was moving to Croatia to work on your dad's company.

13:08Yes. And, he had a rack system, you know, the old Kevin Smith rack system. It was a CD player, amplifier. What's a rack system? Rack system is like a stereo system that you have these racks. You kind of stack them up. Oh, like a stereo receiver. Did you remember the Kevin Smith podcast when he's like talking on the bicycle and he's like, Oh, yes. You got a pretty good rack system. That's a rack system. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. You got a couple of modules. You know, one is like an amplifier for the speakers. One is a CD player. One is maybe like FM radio. One is like. But it's all combined, isn't it? Or you have to stack it up? No, you have to stack it up. There's like specific modules. Okay. And when your brother, my brother, when your brother, my brother was moving. Mother, my brother, blah, blah, blah, blah.

13:50He couldn't take this with him. So, he said, Tim, will you take care of this for the summer? So, I had a rack system where they had a headphone plug and I had Panasonic headphones. And I had access to my dad's old laptop. And you know what I did? I put some CDs and I kind of put some music on and I kind of laid there like, you know, I'm a freaking loser. That's what I am. But didn't you listen to like seal records and stuff like that? Oh, yeah. There was some good seal, some deep forest. Some deep forest. Some shit pop. Yeah. Some stuff like that. And those like six inch speakers. But I definitely remember sort of. And I had on that laptop, I installed the Matrix theme that came in with the Matrix screensaver and the Matrix sounds.

14:30Wait, what would be the Matrix theme on that screensaver? No, it was a whole theme, like whole package, like your Windows. Oh. It was Windows 98. It had like a black and green kind of thing. It had the Matrix thing. And it had a selection of, you know, desktop wallpapers. Yeah. And I've chosen a few of them. One was the first one we've already seen. It's the Trinity in the booth with the hand. That's definitely one of my favorites. I've used that one as a wallpaper. And then the other ones, we'll get to. There's one classic one I think I had for like two years on my desktop. Which I'm pretty sure you all had. With a gun. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

15:10Yeah. Agent. Yeah. I didn't remember these ancient names. So anyway. Agent Smith, Brown, Jones. And Gray. Jones. Gray. Jones. These are all generic American names. Like very generic. Radagast the Brown and Gandalf the Gray. No. Gandalf the Jones and Radagast the Smith. Yeah. All right. We're done with this episode, right? No, we're not. I have some stuff to talk about. Sorry. It's okay. It's a free country. We're introduced to Neo for the first time. Oh, you're right. Yeah. The first time we see his face. And I think we're led to believe that it is Neo. There he is. I think it makes sense. How are we led to believe this is Neo? Because of all the close-ups that he's getting. All the coverage. The real estate that he's taking in this minute.

15:51But he's not. I'm just another guy. I'm just another guy. Not the one I wanted. But here's a great difference between the final and the script. Okay. Let us listen. And the script has a wonderfully hilarious thing that I'm glad they cut out. But I'll read it for you anyway. Do you want me to read and swear? I'll read it. That's the only reason I'm on this podcast. You don't have to read it and swear. I'll read it and... Let's hear it. Okay. So, we are sucked towards the mouthpiece of the phone. Closer and closer until the smooth gray plastic spreads out like a horizon. And the small holes widen until we fall through one. That's one, you know. Swallowed by the darkness that becomes a computer screen. We are online inside a chat room called The Matrix.

16:35It is an exclusive website where hackers hang out. Oh no. So, the screen. The screen says, Jacken. I heard Morpheus has been on this board. And then Superastic says, Morpheus doesn't even exist and The Matrix is nothing but an advertising gimmick for... That's the number four. Oh, okay. For a new game. Wow. And Timex says, All I want to know is Trinity really a girl? And then L-O-D-I-I-I says, 87% of all women are online are really men. And Quark says, The Matrix is a euphemism for the government. And Superastic says, No. The Matrix is a system controlling our lives. And Timex says, You mean MTV?

17:15And then Superastic says, I mean Sega. And F-O-7, F-O-S-4 says, All hail Sega! And we drift back. And this is all text. That's amazing. That's being... Oh, that's amazing. We drift back from the electric conversation entering Neo's apartment. So there we go. I just want to shake the hand and hug the person who changed all these things. This is... That's perfect. 1998. Chat room. The Matrix. They're talking about The Matrix. I love the Sega reference. All hail Sega. That's like 80s. The difference between like this Matrix we have now and the other one, if it was by the script, it would be like that movie. Like, Oh, you want to watch that Matrix? Yeah.

17:56Let's watch that Matrix. Wouldn't it be like on the best of the worst? Yes. It'll be on the... No, I don't think it'll be on the best of the worst. It'll be on like... What's that show they have? The other one, the looking back one. It's like, Oh, it's such a good cheesy schlock movie. I forgot. Some show. Retro something. Something. Rebound. Anything else? Well, I mean, if you want to talk about Keanu Reeves, I just got a mini... Let's do it. This is a special episode. He's our main, he's our main protagonist. He's a buff hacker. Keanu Reeves, I have to say, is a very interesting dude. And I don't know, I feel like I respect the guy a lot. He seems like a cool guy. Yeah. He's a sad man. I mean, he's a sad man. He's a Canadian born actor. He went through,

18:36I think he grew up, he grew up in Canada. Right. But he was born in Lebanon and his parents were English and Hawaiian. Yeah. Yeah. So he's half American, Hawaiian, Portuguese, English, and Chinese. But I think I remember reading an interview and he said, he's a man of the world. He feels Canadian because he grew up in Toronto. Yeah. He has a green card for the States. Oh. He did commercials, you know, he was in a stage production for Romeo and Juliet at 15. Wow. Did he do an English accent there? Oh man. But see, that's the thing I don't understand. Then later on, you know, in the late 80s or in the early 90s, you know, he did Bill and Ted, right? Which made him Yes. Kind of famous, right? Excellent. And then he also did Point Break and Speed. Speed. Speed and our favorite Babes in Toyland.

19:17I was going to say Babes in Toyland. That one was so bad. He was singing too. It was great. Remember? Since Cincinnati. Yeah, since Cincinnati. And he's a, you know, he's a perfectionist. You know, he always tries his hardest to get things done. 1992, he did his best at Dracula. You know, Dracula. Love that film. He did his best. And, you know, other horrible British accents and Speed. And Speed. And he was, that was 1994. He did Speed. And he was known pretty well before The Matrix, you know what I mean? That's how it goes. That's true because, yeah. And he did, you know, more Shakespeare theater in 1995. He did Hamlet, Shakespeare theater. Wonderful. More. And Speed. Yep. And dropped out of Speed 2,

19:58though. Even though he was offered 11 million. He was offered 11 million. Didn't want to do Speed 2. Respect. Very good. I like that. He knows what to do. And then he did Johnny Memnonik. Yeah, I keep hearing that. Which is a Canadian-American movie with Dolph Lundgren. And it's directed by Robert Longo. So, what's interesting about Keanu Reeves is that, do you want to go on, Phil? Well, he, I also wanted to say later on, he also dabbles in music a little bit. That's right. He plays bass. So, famously, Will Smith was also approached to play Neo, but, you know, instead, he did Wild Wild West. Probably for the best. He said he would have messed it up, given his current state of mind at the time. Oh, good. But also, remember when you watched the Matrix premiere video? You could see him

20:38wearing a leather trench coat. Really? Yes. Really. Will Smith. That's a good one. You should link that video. And according to Don Davis, Johnny Depp, it was Lana and Lily's first choice for Neo, but Warner Brothers wanted Brad Pitt or Val Kilmer. But they really... Val Kilmer would have been interesting. He wasn't fat yet then, was he? No. This was just like, well, this was heat. This was heat, like, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was watching a recent interview with Carrie Ann Moss, which is very interesting. And, it's on YouTube. I think it's called like, I forgot what the interview is called. But anyway, it's one of the top interviews. It's recent. And what was interesting was that they were talking about sort of whether Keanu Reeves was big or not at the time. And she was mentioning that,

21:18yeah, when The Matrix came out, he was already kind of well-known because of those previous roles. Yeah. And speed. And Carrie Ann was talking about how she was getting, being cast for The Matrix. And I didn't know this, but you go through a lot of steps in casting procedures. I always imagine it's like, Many steps. Yes, you do. I thought it was just like, once, and you send in a tape, or you go and, you know, meet with the casting agent. So many callbacks. But no, it's a bunch. So she said that she went through so many of these steps. And she was convinced. A lot of times you don't even know until maybe like a few days before the filming. What's the thing? She said that she was pretty deep in the process, but she was, she said she was convinced by the end that they probably

21:59were going to pick someone who was already an established A-list actor. Who were the alternatives for the women? I don't think it's known. I'm not sure. But yeah, it was just amazing because she got cast because the witch house really liked her. Fran Walsh and Philippa Bourne. Okay. Well, that's all I have for this minute. Yep, that's it. This was the minute. This was the minute. Okay, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Jake Dragic. I'm at Tim O'Mearski. Interesting. See you next episode. Bye. It would be a good one.