Minute 81: “Where are they?”

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. Hi, I'm Philip. I like this movie. Also, I'm kind of sick, so that's a problem. I have a little throat issue. There you go. And with me is Jacob Kragash. That's his name. We have the same last name. It's a very interesting coincidence. And with us is Tim. Hello. Yep, I don't share your last name. Not your sickness. No. Not my sickness. We have to get down with it. Nope. But, welcome to Minute 81. It's a wonderful minute full of action and adventure. And I remember that we did not mention, listen to me talk.

0:44It sounds like I'm dying. It's okay. I mean, that's not okay that you're dying, but it's okay that you're sorry. Yeah, thanks, thanks. And what I realized was that we didn't talk about the script. You know, that we weren't in 1996 zone for quite some time. But today, quite different because there's this sequence that's been cut out and we'll talk about that whole sequence. I'm looking forward to it in the next two minutes that we're going to cover this scene. So, this is what happens. Heyo. Sounds lovely. They find the wet wall. The agents search for them. One SWAT team member searches through an abandoned bathroom as the crew try to climb down the wet wall.

1:25One of them accidentally disperses some dust and Cypher coughs. Will they be found out? Who knows? It's a tense, tense scene, guys. Tense scene today. Very tense. Also. Is this the new year already? I can't tell. I'm so preoccupied with the Matrix. Not yet. It's Christmas. It's Christmas Day, actually. Oh, Merry Christmas. No one's going to listen to that today. So, you're opening Christmas presents. And then listening to the Matrix Minute. Naturally. Yeah. That's totally what's on your mind. Exactly. Most likely, you're listening to this post-Christmas holidays. As one of our listeners, Tim. Sometime in January. No relation to the other Tim said, Merry Matrix Christmas.

2:06So, Merry Matrix Christmas to you. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Indeed. As we talk through this tense, tense scene. So, Morpheus and the gang, they have their phones. Well, Morpheus has his phone. And Tank is telling him he found the... What does he say? Because I'm not looking at the video footage, so I can't really tell. But, you know. There it is. There it is. Did he say left, that's it? Yeah. Yeah. So, wow, man. He said left, that's it. And, well, left, that's it. It is. Morpheus leaves his jacket. Tim, is that... He left his jacket before. Yeah, yeah. That's a trace. Yes. So, they go, hmm.

2:47Hmm. Morpheus must be here. And he's not there. Well, I always thought that he... We talked about this a couple of episodes back. I always thought he left the jacket and they somehow, like, traced the jacket because it's not of the Matrix origins. That's how they find it. Oh, that's interesting. That's an interesting theory. I always thought that. But seeing now that he was asking for the phone, I think he might have left his phone in his jacket and they were tracking the phone instead of the jacket itself. Oh. Okay. It was just, like, a detail that wasn't clear, but, you know, because he doesn't have a phone. But in this minute, Agent Smith and Agent Brown kind of meet at this point where they see Morpheus' jacket. Yeah, that's what I mean. So, it could be a phone, you know, in the jacket.

3:28Right, right, right. He doesn't leave the jacket. He leaves a phone and a jacket in there, which is kind of weird, but I guess they just didn't... It's not a jacket. It's the jacket. It's not a jacket. The chosen one. The jacket, okay? As you know, it's a jacket you can put on, express yourself, have fun. Thanks, Tommy. You're welcome. Anyway, remember, like, last minute, Mouse just died? That's a sad thing. Ha ha. What a story. We already forgot about it. Yeah. Sad. But, you know, that blood coming out of his mouth was pretty nuts. Anyway, what's going on in this scene here? Whoa, that is a weird beer. We're drinking beers. They're both porters.

4:09Tim bought it for us, which is amazing. Thank you, sir. Oh, which ones are you having the... Oh, my goodness. This one's weird. I know. I've never tried beer in my life. It's like bacon. So, quick Matrix Beer Minute detour. All right. I have to. Okay. The first is... Oh, my goodness. It's still in my throat. I feel this. What? Oh, okay. So, it's not my throat being crazy. Oh, my goodness. Because I'm drinking this and I'm not feeling too well. So, I thought this was just a side effect. The first beer is a recommendation from our fellow co-host, Tim. It's a mint stout from Tanker. Yes. Which was quite nice. It's lovely. Lovely. But this other one we decided to try when we were at the beer store last week is a Chipotle

4:51Porter from McKellar. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. Remember when I told you I said it tastes like bacon? I'm just like... Tastes like grilled bacon. I can't believe what I'm drinking here. This is just... I don't know. It's... It's spicy, isn't it? Spicy. It's a spicy beer. I thought it was my throat acting up. So, you tried this one before, Tim? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I tried all the McKellar ones because I like them so much. I like their... I like their crazy tastes. Man, McKellar, every one I've tried so far has been good. This one's like just weird, but it doesn't mean it's bad. It's just weird. Okay, so... Good. We're back to the Matrix. The whole... This is so strange. I thought it was just my throat. I'm so happy now. My spicy throat. All right, go on, Jake. I have to say that there's a bit of movie magic.

5:32Not movie magic, but movie trickery is that showing them crawling through that little hole, all of them trying to get into that wall would look ridiculous. I'm sorry. So you have to like... I just have to interrupt and say this whole sequence has them crawling down. It's a big wide shot of them crawling, you know, in the wet wall passageway. Well, I wanted to say the main hero sequence of this minute is the main wet wall. Heroes are all crawling through. Not really crawling. They're sort of... Climbing down? Yeah. There you go. Climbing down the vertical, very narrow wall. Well, the sewage.

6:12But I just wanted to say like, you know, like them showing them getting in there would look ridiculous. Yeah. Well, you wouldn't put that. That's silly. Yeah. The getting in there. That would be stupid. But they're in there. Very uncomfortable. This entire... The majority of this minute is them climbing down. And, you know, it's a tense moment in the movie because, you know, obviously the agents have been so hyped up as being so scary. They are scary. And here we are with our heroes trapped in this situation where they have to escape the agents and they have to be extremely quiet. Otherwise, if they give away their position, they're in much bigger trouble than before because they're stuck in a wall. I mean, that's... Who wants to be found out of the wall?

6:53What can you do for a wall? Awkward. Awkward. It's also interesting because all the cops that you see usually don't see their faces very much. And so you just see them as lights and just dimly lit shapes. And that also... Plus that close-up with the pliers plucking, you know, just cutting the hard line. Phil's nightmare. It just... That just gives me a sense of, like, just scary foreboding. And the creeping terror of the machine. The oppression. They look like they're machines. The SWAT team. Are you scared of the policemen?

7:34Oh, yeah. Like, generally in life. Are you scared of, like... If, say, you're lost and you see a policeman, will you go talk to them and, like, ask where you are? I'd be very reluctant. Yeah? Yes. Or just, like... Because they scare me. They scare me. Because... Why is it? Did your parents, like... Like, you know, I remember... No, I had a few run-ins with police officers and I don't know. They just look like... And then, you know, people have all these videos now. Thanks to the internet. And it just terrifies me because they're just gonna, you know... Instead of just helping me, they're probably gonna ask me for ID and stuff. It's like, I don't have it with me. You don't have it with me. You're gonna have to come with me. And it's like, I didn't want this. I just wanted to know where I was. They usually are much more relaxed. It's scary. They're scary.

8:14It's scary. Oh, man. This beer is weird. Okay, good. It's not me. Anyway, continue. If anyone else wants the same beer experience, get the... The McKellar Chipotle... The McKellar Chipotle Porter. So we have... The main shot is this, as Tim pointed out, iPhone portrait mode shot... Yeah. ...of the wall. And it's so weird because... Actually, I think it's a great shot. It's amazing. You can see all these actors going down... On the white shot. ...the wall. But the weird thing is that whenever I see that, when I used to see that shot, I used to be like, wow, that's an amazing shot.

8:54And now whenever I see it, all I can think of is, this is a classic studio shot. Because... Oh, yeah? Why? It reminds me of, you know how in movies, you have this effect where you can transition from one location to another location in the building? So, better said... Oh, yeah, the fake walls? Yeah, when you pan from one room to another room, and the camera goes... Life aquatic. It's like, evidently, through the wall. But really, it's just a set. So, obviously, it's sliced, and there is no wall between the camera and the room. And so, it gives off the impression that the camera is this, you know, spectator with special properties to... It's actually a really cool trick, because back then, it was not, you know...

9:37It was all practical within the set. All commonplace. And so, obviously, those tricks, you can tell, are sets. And that's why this shot reminds me of that. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Also, it reminds me a lot of comic books, because in comics books, the framing of your, I guess, whatever, the viewpoint, the shot, it can be freehand. You know, sometimes it can be square, sometimes it can be narrow. So, it really reminds me of that. You know, there are a lot more freedom in that than movies, where your frame is always a rectangle. A rectangle of views. Well, yes. The way the storyboards were framed were in the natural comic book style.

10:21So, there's a lot of influence in that. We talked about that many times before. And if you look at the storyboards that Steve Skroesch did... He really... They and the Wachowskis embraced that comic book feel, and a lot of it got put into the Matrix film, which is what gives it a better identity. I talked about that before. We talked about this about a billion and one talents. Yeah, but let me tell you, here's a factoid. Magic. I've been saving since the first episode. Whoa. Steve Skroesch. Go. Where is he originally from? Australia. He's from Croatia. What? Oh. Yep. Steve Skroesch is actually Croatian.

11:03You mean his parents are? Yeah, his parents are, but he was born in Croatia. No way. What is his last name? Skroesch? Skroesch. Is that Croatian? R-O-C-E. Wait. S-K-R-O-C-E. Skroze? What would that be? Skroche? Skroche. Why is that? I guess nothing. Maybe he's just like from Croatia. It doesn't have a Croatian family name. Well, maybe they changed it. A lot of people either anglicize their name or... Well, like... That's right. Like our name has an S-H now. Oh, it does? Yeah. Like legally? Mm-hmm. And he's great. Wow.

11:43Steve Skroesch is a fantastic storyboard artist. And he took on this job not just because it was The Matrix and it was a new thing. And talented people usually get attracted to projects that they know are something special, but also because it was a good way of him to improve his comic book drawing skills. And that's another little tip for all you future artists out there. Future artists? I want to talk about. All you artists out there, if you want to just, you know, practice on drawing, no better way to do that than being hired as doing storyboards. Do you want the rest of this, Phil? Do you want the rest? No, I'm fine. I'd like to donate this beer to anyone who would want it.

12:26Is it killing you slowly? I've never experienced in my life the beer. What is this? What is this concoction from the McKellar Labs? The McKellar... My throat is literally... Chipotle. Spiced. Spicy throat. So let's just skip to the end. But he's also Canadian. Okay. That's interesting. It's Croatian Canadian. Wow. I would never have guessed because that last name is... Never heard of it before. Ha ha. Ha ha. Yeah. That's an interesting factoid. Thank you for sharing. You're welcome. Since April. Since April. Wow. Wow. You just held your tongue.

13:07Yes. Who knows what other secrets fill holes in his mind palace. If you want to go to the 1996... No, no, no. We have to finish what happens in the scene. Is that... You know, obviously... In scenes like this in movies, we go... Oh. You know, what's going to happen? Are they going to be revealed or not? You know, what's going to happen? The suspense. Sure enough, of course, the suspense ends with... Who? Who? Is it Cypher? No, not Cypher. Cypher. It is Cypher. Well, no. Cypher... Who? Oh, yeah. The mystery. You want to know about the mystery of whose foot that is? Yeah, whose foot is that? That's my question. Hmm. So someone's foot... So whose foot gets the dirt on Cypher's bald head? Yeah. I mean, if you look at the previous shot, Morpheus is on the top.

13:51So he's the most likely person to have done that. But it seems like Neo might be the more klutzy one at the moment. So he might have done that. But then again, Neo is a little too close to Cypher. Nah, it's Morpheus. It has to be Morpheus. But maybe Cypher... No, no, no. It could be Cypher. It could be Neo. Yeah, it could be Neo. Because Cypher's climbing down very fast. Because let's have a look. It's a man's foot. It's not Trinity. And Cypher... So the only people, two men above Cypher is Neo and Morpheus, right? Apoch is below Cypher. It's only between Morpheus and Neo, yeah. Okay, so let's look at shots before and let's see what's Morpheus wearing. That's all I wanted to do. Wait, there's a shot... In this very minute, there's a shot of Morpheus coming in.

14:31I'm going to have a look. They look pretty smooth. Semi-glossy. They have very similar shoes, him and Neo at this... And funny enough, similar pants. That is true. I'm going to go with Neo. I'm going with Neo because Morpheus' position is a little too... Like his foot would be doing some crazy acrobatics for it to bend that way. Yeah, I'll go with Neo as well. And listeners, what do you think? So Neo dusts him. Oh, make a pole. Yeah, make a pole. Make a pole. Whose foot is it? The most irrelevant information. And so the dirt that Morpheus, presumably, accidentally... Oh no, sorry, Neo presumably accidentally knocks off.

15:13But then again, the shot right before the foot is Morpheus having trouble. It doesn't matter. But he's fixed... No, no. Because he's turned... Yeah, you're right, Philip. He's turned on the side, so he wouldn't be able to do that with his foot. The point is... Kind of like... Yeah. The point is that the dirt gets onto, like you said, Cypher's bald head and face. And, you know, the big question now is... He doesn't cough yet in this episode. He doesn't do the second cough. Okay. We'll get to the next episode. No, this one's the first cough. Yeah. Just like a reactionary cough. Yeah. Cough. Well, so what do you think of that little cut of, you know, switch? Just adds for effect there, right?

15:55Just talking about editing here. Well, I mean, this is... Yeah. It's good for establishing. It's a good case of, as we mentioned earlier, a suspenseful scene where anything could give him away. Any noise, any misstep, as we missed in this shot earlier with the foot. It's a good scene, you know? It's a good suspenseful scene. I was scared when I saw this. I think... In movie theaters. I would. I never saw it in movie theaters. In movie theaters. In movie theaters. I mean, I wish I did. Yeah. I don't know, man. Yeah. Any of our listeners, do you own a cinema? And are you close to us in Europe?

16:35And would you be able... It would be so nice to let us watch The Matrix with you. Please. Please, guys. We'll add you as a host, co-host, for a few episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Absolutely. And we'll make you some burgers and bring you some Chipotle beer. Oh, yes. We'll give you some Chipotle beer. So you, too, will know how it feels. We try the famous Chipotle flavor. It'll be a hand massage, maybe. Depends. If your hands are not gross. Wow. I'm, like, really hairy. You'll go through Tim's screening. I want to try that one. Well, look. There's a bunch. Well, yeah. I want to try it. I'm just going to take a little bit. Okay, Jacob. All right. Anyway, we're just talking about beer. Jonathan Parker, when you come over to talk with us about The Matrix, I think we're going

17:18to talk about some beer. Shout out to the Batman Minute. Batman Minute fills on this week. Oh, I'm on there this week. Isn't that cool? Yeah. Well, not this week, because it's December 25th. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. Yep. Last week. You're too late. Do you guys want to go to the 1996 Zodan? 1996 Zone. Yeah, let's 1996 it up. But Christmas, 1996. Ooh, so today's Christmas Day, huh? Hit it, Johnny. Johnny. All righty. Johnny played that way. Johnny. Yeah, Johnny's good. He keeps getting better. Yeah, he does. He does. So before we go to 1996, let's go to 1998, and let's go a little, a few scenes back where

18:00Neo gets back from the Oracle and goes into the car. Because in the 1998 shooting script, there's a little exchange, which we have a photo of. We have a photo of Cypher turning his head back and smiling in the car because he was driving. Yes. And this scene actually exists, very similar to the Dark Knight scene that was also mysteriously cut out, if you guys remember, in 2008's The Dark Knight, where the Joker throws Megan, no, that's her name, Maggie Gyllenhaal, I mean, Rachel, Rachel, down the building, and Batman saves her. So we just cut away as if the Joker just left, and that's the end of the takeover scene.

18:43Right. Well, in that movie, there was a scene where the Joker jumps into a car, and there's a photo of the Joker in the car, and we never got to see that scene. So just like this one, we have a photo of Cypher in a car, and we never got to see that scene. And this is what it says. This is how it goes in the script. Neo and Morpheus get in the car. Morpheus says, let's go. And then Cypher looks in the rearview mirror at Neo. Well, any good news or bad news? And Morpheus goes, not now, Cypher. Cypher slaps the car in gear and pulls into traffic. Trinity looks at Neo, who is staring at the final bit of cookie. He puts it in his mouth and chews. And Trinity goes, you all right?

19:26Right as rain. Oh, come on. Ha ha. Oh, Neo. And there we go. And in room 1313, Mouse's cellular rings. And then what they were going to do is, remember when Mouse picks up the phone? In the script, Mouse says, welcome to movie phone. And then Tank says, they're on their way. To movie phone? Yeah, because you notice that they have, whenever Tank says operator, that's a cover for if someone mistakenly dials his number. Never knew that. I thought it was just him being funny and fun. And that's why it says operator. It's like the telephone operator. So then they get wrong number. Yeah. That was never explained in the movie.

20:06Oh, I thought everybody knew this. So anyway, yeah, that's what it says. And Mouse says, welcome to movie phone. I think they took that out for a good reason. One little tidbit with Cypher when Neo looks at Cypher and Cypher smiles at him. Remember when they're getting out of the car? Yes. Cypher just goes, like the man says, welcome to the real world. Silliness. Quality, quality script writing there. And then Cypher, following the others into the hotel, nervously glances around, wiping the sweat from his forehead. So we have a little bit more obvious hints that we don't need because you already know he's a Judas.

20:46So there we go. These are things that were omitted while they were filming. Because this is the shooting script. Maybe they even shot them and they were like, this is poop. See, it just shows that you're developing the story and the script even while you're filming, even after you're filming. It's always changing. It never stops. And that's all I wanted to mention for the 1998 version. And now we can go to the 1996 version. Cue the song again. Oh, yeah. Christmas. Why not? Yeah. Can we replay the song? We're doing twice, right? Double. Yes. Double song. Yeah. A dish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. That's a joke. What did you say?

21:26Junk? Did you say something that was junk? No. Joke. No, I said that's the joke. So in this sequence, the one where they're going down the wet wall, there is a certain amount of shots and sequences or just scenes that were actually taken out and they were different. We're going to talk about the pretty big one in the course of these maybe future three minutes, three or four minutes. And they're quite interesting. I think you'll have a fun time looking at those because there's even some great storyboards in the Art of Matrix book as well. Is it called Art of Matrix or Art of the Matrix? Art of the Matrix. So as they are going inside the plumbing wall, slowly worming their way down the greasy

22:10black stack stripes. Above them, light fills the hole they made to get inside. Brown turns to Smith. Where are they? You remember that? The cops are searching in silence. And when someone hears something strange in the bathroom, near the bathroom, Cypher has slipped and is wedged between the wall and several thick supply pipes. The cop leans in, his ear almost against it and the membrane of plaster separating them. He can hear whispers, hisses, and a grunt when the wall suddenly bulges and shattercracking is the cop realizes, they're in the walls. They're in the walls. So in the old script, what happened was Cypher and these guys are trying to get through the

22:54wall. And as they're trying to go down, it gets a little too... Crowded? Yeah, I guess not just too crowded, but yeah, like there's too many pipes between them. So he had to slip through and then the pipe starts bulging through the wall. Yeah, that's weird. I mean, it makes sense, I think. And they changed that because they just, they didn't have enough time, like they didn't have enough money to make that. Yeah. I mean, in this case, it worked out. So then you just changed it to cough. It worked out well. That's good. Did you know that... It gives it a little bit more randomness, I think, with the cough. Yeah. It's not just like, you know... Did you notice that a lot of movies... It's not just Cypher being inept. ...have this sort of thing happen, where they plan for something, for one thing, and then

23:39all of a sudden they have to change their plans. Oh, yeah. And ultimately that choice that they made on set becomes the choice that we're used to and we say, that's even better, you know, it turns out to work out. It's interesting, actually. It's hard to tell when you don't have that... You weren't there at the point where this new idea didn't exist, so it's really hard to judge. Exactly. I just meant that it's interesting how, you know, you plan all this stuff out in the script and in pre-production, but when you get there, you know, sometimes it doesn't come to fruition because of many reasons. Yeah. And I guess that's a sign of a good filmmaker to have the best judgment, because sometimes, you know, you may be just bored of that old idea or something like that, and it's not

24:21working. And the, you know, the call is, do you keep trying until it works the way you had it in your mind or you give up and try a different thing, you know? And sometimes better ideas crop up. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you just need to stick to it. And in the end, like, you'll work out and be like, oh, you know what? That's true, too. This is actually, you know, after a hundred takes, this is exactly how I want it. And now it's worth it. Yeah. You never know. It depends on the movie. Kubrick. Yeah. Kubrick style. Yeah. Kubrick. Someone's at the door. No. It just fills the glass. That's a lot of foam. It is. You want 80% foam and 20%... All right. Well, this concludes Matrix Minute 81.

25:02Well, it's called The Matrix Minute, but whatever. Whatever. Raiders of the Lost Ark came out 1981. Cool. Did you go watch it? No, no. Empire Strikes Back did. Wait, which one? Which one was? No, Empire Strikes Back was 1980. Chicken. And Raiders was 1981. Hopefully we'll get some of the guys from Indiana Jones Minute showing up. That's great. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Also, there's a... We did a little talk about Last Jedi. That's right. Yeah. If you are interested in our opinions... I don't know. We just kind of talked. It's not a really review. Yeah. It's not a really review. It's like maybe just... Sharing thoughts and stuff. Yeah. It's fun. It's like after the... We saw the movie. We just sat down. Yeah. We just sat down. It was actually right after the movie. Yeah. We just sat down together. Physically in the room. Not... Not like this.

25:42Not like this. Yeah. You can check it out. Just Google Phil and Jake in conversation and boom. You'll get to the website. It's on YouTube too. You can put it in there. Yeah. We'll show notes it up. All right. It's not too long either. Which is good. Yeah. No more craziness. It's like insane hours. So that you can do that. And other than that... Okay. Our usual stuff. You know where. You know how. You know why. Thanks for listening to us so far. I hope you guys have a great... I wrote in our poll. Whose foot is it? Whose foot is it? You mean Facebook poll or... Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But don't open it because some people might put the Oracle's foot in there and then. How will we know the truth? The Oracle's a shapeshifter.

26:24A lizard woman. Thank you everyone. Merry Christmas. Yeah. Don't be a lizard woman. wan