Minute 84: “Take him.”

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 because, hey, we just love this movie. Hey, everybody, it's the new year. It's January 1st. 2018. That's right. What in the world is going on? And there's an elephant in the room because usually we would have the third person talking with us, but unfortunately, due to some family obligations, he's not able to attend. And that is Tim, so it's kind of quiet here, isn't it? Yeah, it's going to be, this is the first time we've ever recorded without Tim in the span of a podcast. But luckily, we have a guest to never give up and never surrender.

0:42With us is Alex Thompson of Galaxy Quest Minute. Yay! Welcome, Alex. Yay! Thanks for having me, guys. Don't do too much of it. You've got to pay royalties. Oh, yeah, you're right. Oh, man, be careful. Watch out. So, hey, sir, welcome to the Matrix Minute. Thank you for coming out, and thank you so much for being on our podcast. Indeed, indeed. We're glad to have you. There is no podcast. Oh, you see, these philosophical things are the things we... We're already getting philosophical at the beginning. We ponder about. But this minute is definitely going to be just a lot of fighting, so that's going to be something. The action returns. Yeah.

1:22And before we head on to talk about what this minute is... We'll have to just apologize publicly that if I sound weird, I'm a little bit... I have a bit of a cold. So, in case that comes through the microphone, I apologize. Can't help it. It's okay. It's all right, Jake. It's all right. So, Alex, maybe it would be a good time to... Because I forgot that one time when Scott Corelli was on, and I totally forgot to ask these fundamental introductory questions. And we waited all the way until the third episode to ask this. But in this case, no, I didn't forget this time. So, Alex, tell us, how did you get introduced to The Matrix, and what does it mean to you?

2:09What's all about? I think I was relatively late to this movie. Ah. Excuse me. I was taking some class in middle school that parts of it were kind of intro philosophy stuff. And so, they brought in a DVD of The Matrix to kind of show us some of the more philosophical scenes. Which I think I probably maybe had heard of it at that point. But people who obviously had seen it were like, oh, yeah, let's watch the elevator, you know, the lobby scene and stuff like that. And I'm like, what? Okay, no. And they're like, no, shut up. We're going to watch the scene where he talks to the kid and bends a spoon and so on and so forth. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. But then after that, I'm sure at some point I got it from Blockbuster and watched it and loved it.

2:55Oh, Blockbuster. Yeah. R.I.P. Blockbuster. So, when you first saw The Matrix, what were some of your initial reactions, if you can't remember that far? When was that? Yeah, when did you actually, if you said you came late into The Matrix game, when was that? Approximately. It still would have probably been early 2000s. I don't think, you know. I would say, yeah. It was probably like a year, maybe two years after it came out. Oh, okay. That's not too late. Crazy late. I thought you meant like a decade later. No, no, no, no. Just stay. I didn't catch it when it came out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Neither did we because we were 10. I mean, I was 10. That is true. So, when you saw it, what were some of your thoughts?

3:40Of the film in general? I remember, yeah, I remember it looking really cool. Yeah. And, you know, this was that prime period in time where everyone, you know, if you were just wearing that all black leather and flowy trench coats, you looked really cool. And that was what was cool at the time. So, I just remember thinking everyone just looked so rad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They definitely did. That was how I wanted to look, but I didn't have the budget or the cojones to actually dress like that. Yeah. Neither do we. What was the... I can't remember though... It's an expensive enterprise. I think we talked about this before, but did the Matrix... We're repeating stuff. We're repeating, Jacob. We're repeating. I won't ask that question.

4:21It's a dumb question anyway. It's about fashion and it's boring. Okay. Okay. But yeah, it was a cool looking movie and cool costumes. Definitely. The style is very out of its world due to its comic book influence. Yes. Yeah. It's a wonderful film. So, would you say that the Matrix made an impact on you in anywhere or was it just sort of like, oh, that's a cool movie and you sort of just... Yeah, because the sequels were going to be coming out really soon if it was the early 2000s. In fact, they might have been out already. Yeah. It made an impact, I guess, in just in the way that it kind of leached into the pop culture, you know, and then I started seeing the references to it everywhere in Scary Movie and Shrek and, you know, everything that did the bending backwards thing and the bullet

5:02time thing. Yeah. That's true. I guess once you have that piece of pop culture in your vocabulary, then you see it referenced everywhere, I guess. Mm-hmm. That is true, though. I think the Matrix is probably one of the most referenced movies. It seems like... Well, in the early 2000s, definitely. Yeah. I think it cooled down now. Of that time period. Yeah. Seemingly. The Matrix. Well, in this case, we're on a really low note starting off the year. Really sad. Why? Because Tim's gone. But no. That was true. But also because poor Morpheus is taking a beating. Right. He's taking a beating. And this is where we can actually get into the minute, you know?

5:42I think it's right around that time. Tell us, Phil, what happens in this minute. I shall tell you. And what minute we're in. Minute 84. I was about to say 85. I messed that up. Gremlins came out in 84. Shout out to my way within it. Smith and Morpheus conclude their brutal fist fight in a staggering defeat for poor Morpheus. Smith barely gets a scratch on him and gets the SWAT to take him out. The rest of the crew escape from the sewer and Tank is distraught but gets a phone call. And that's our minute. Big old fight scene. Lots of... This is actually a pretty cool battle. Oh, yes. I mean, this is... I think this is... How many times have we seen any Kung Fu battles that were, like, realistic other than...

6:25I don't think we've seen anything, have we? You mean in general or in the Matrix? In the Matrix so far. We just saw the Dojo fight. That's right. And the Dojo fight was quite stylized. And it was a sparring match between our two heroes. So it wasn't... But in the Matrix... No, we really haven't seen... No. The only time he goes back to the Matrix is, you know, when they go to get the Oracle. And so this is our first... This is our first real tense fight other than the one at the beginning with Trinity. But she didn't find anything. And also a fight that has actual real story tension. Because, like you mentioned, the Dojo was just a sparring session. But this is something real that's happening within the story.

7:08And our heroes are really in danger. Which makes the fight all the more intense, I think. And I think... I think you were talking about... Kind of what this meant to be. This might be the first, like, brutal fight I remember seeing in a movie at this point in time. Yeah, especially with all this choreography. Well, actually, I think for me, one of my favorite aspects of this fight is that Morpheus is in this position where, you know, we had this sort of buildup of talking about the agents, about how dangerous they are, about how people have died facing agents, about how you can't even, you know, fathom, you know, challenging these agents. And so this is what we actually see. We see the manifestation of these stories and legends of the agents actually in the movie.

7:53And it shows just how Morpheus, you know, we all sort of... I mean... We look up to... Tim's not here. Tim's not here. I was going to say, we all look up to Morpheus. To poo-poo Morpheus. And if you didn't know, Alex... But let's say whether you agree or not, you do kind of look up to Morpheus in the story. Yeah, you do. Especially if it's the first viewing. You do kind of like look and you see, oh, Morpheus is a sort of like wise sage, you know, a guide. And you think, you know, he's sort of like, Morpheus will get us out of these situations. But in here, what we see is that Morpheus is so... He's already exhausted just battling the agents for less than a minute, you know. And he already has this bloody nose and he's bleeding.

8:34And you can tell that by the end of the battle, he can't even like, you know, make his moves fast enough to counteract Smith. And for Smith, it's just another job. Just another human. Exactly. And so that... I always remember watching this scene and thinking like, man, like this shows just how powerful these agents are. And that our human heroes are unfortunately as good as they are in their skills. They're just... They're humans, you know, and they can't... They can't really match up, you know. So... By the way, look at that... To these agents. You pause at a screen here. Like you can see right up there, that hole that Morpheus jumped out of. It's pretty, pretty high up there. Yeah. But then there's also great attention to detail.

9:16You see the window there. I don't know why there's a window in the bathroom to begin with, but it's bricked up because of the glitch. Oh. Yeah, that's what that... That's why there's brick. Yeah. Oh man, I never noticed that ever. I was just looking at it now. That's wild. Pretty insane. So this choreography was obviously done by Yen Wuping and his associates during the production of the film. And, you know, it took them quite a few months. Like I said, like the training for all the actors took about six. Right. Six months, I think. Something like that. Six to eight months. I don't have any notes. It says it's 68 months. 68 months. That's a lot. Yeah.

9:56They could have shot another movie. I know, but look how well it turned out. But look how well it turned out. This is one of the prime examples of why, like, this movie is special, I think. Because they actually had the actors trained far enough to be able to perform these, you know, these pretty intense stunts and choreography. So poor Morpheus. Poor Morpheus. He gets completely, you know, his skull probably suffered some damages hitting the toilet seat. The toilet, yes. Alex, I don't know if you know this, but for us, that shot with the toilet is always, like, it's that image that stays in our mind forever.

10:42It looks so painful. Imagine hitting your head on the toilet seat. And then the toilet seat cracks. I mean, that is some impact right there. Yeah. I'm trying to think. I can't think of too many cinematic fights that I would have seen at that time where the hero just gets pounded. Yeah. Like this. Well, especially, like, mainstream movies. Because I don't know anything about, like, kung fu movies. Yeah, we're kind of... We're completely illiterate when it comes to kung fu. I'm not completely. I am completely illiterate. You are not completely. Not completely. You're semi-illiterate. There we go. Thank you. That's a good question, though. I don't know what movies have... The only one that comes to mind might be Terminator 2.

11:26Hey! Yeah. That's a good point. Because Arnold does take a beating. He does. Spoiler alert for a 20-odd-year-old movie. Arnold does take a beating at the hands of Robert Patrick at the end of that one. And that's actually a very good scene because it's, again, it's similar to this. There's that tension. There's a lot of similarities with Terminator and the Matrix. But I think Terminator... I would argue Terminator has more tension because that's at the end of the film. Close to the end of the film. Where this is still sort of in the middle-ish. That's true. But I think both of those fight scenes, they kind of have this interesting dynamic where, as a moviegoer, you're thinking, of course our hero's going to win the fight. And then you're realizing, oh no, he's outclassed. There's not going to be some clever deus ex machina to save him here.

12:08He's not going to... There's not some trick that the bad guy's going to miss. His hubris isn't going to get him. Our hero's going to get killed here. He's going to die. Well, that's what makes it so good, I think. Scenes like this. Yeah. Because you're not even sure what's going to happen. And plus, when we couple that with, you know, like stuff the Oracle said and things like this, you sort of like, oh... Oh yes, the prophecy. You know, what could happen. Yeah, the Oracle said that, you know... It's going to have either Morpheus's or Neo's own life, you know, on both hands. Which one is he going to pick? It's always nice because in The Matrix, you always juggle between this, like, is it truth or is it not truth type stuff, you know, with these scenes. You're not necessarily thinking about, like, what will the Oracle's outcome be?

12:50But you're thinking about, like, is the Oracle really saying the truth? Or is the Oracle really just... Winging it. Winging it. Smith has this weird move near the beginning of the minute where he's laying on his back and it looks like he, I guess, hits the ground to kind of float to his feet? Yes, that's so cool. I love it. It's cool, but it's the one moment where he seems to... Because basically the rest of the fight, he just seems to be a really strong, really fast guy. And is he hitting the ground so hard that he bumps himself up? I can't quite tell what's happening here. Yeah, it seems like it is. That is one of the more oddball shots that seem to reflect and reference kung fu films from, you know, Hong Kong more often than not.

13:38Because that... I think that's a big trope where it's in those types of films where the characters defy physics in a crazy way that is never explained in those films. Like, I mean, Crouch and Tiger came after this, but it also uses the same kind of visual language. And I think that's a direct reference to those kinds of Eastern action film techniques or... I guess, or... Images. Elements. Elements. So that really... That's great that you brought that up because that really does ring to me as one of those kinds of things where he's so powerful, he actually just does...

14:19And he just rises up. I always thought it was just a robotic looking move. Yeah. He's an agent. But there you go. It makes sense in the movie. It does. Yeah. Definitely. So as they continue fighting or, you know, just one of them gets... Well, I have a question. Okay, go. For... In terms of cinematography. There's a shot here where Morpheus has a sort of... He sort of rests his weight on one of his palms and does a little kicking move. Ah, the wide shot, yes. The wide shot. It looks so strange, the lighting, because look at how the light is so strong coming from the doorway. Yeah, yeah.

15:00Sort of... It never really gelled with the rest of the shots. I guess not. It's very set-like to me. Anything to comment on that? I don't know. It is quite... It is quite the odd shot. Another one of those. See, this is what happens when you start deconstructing these things one minute at a time. You're just looking at every shot. And it's all supposed to be going on in one flowing motion. I also like how... It also... Yeah, go ahead. That move... That choice of move and technique from him also feels somewhat out of place to me, because everything else he's doing is either, you know, kind of very sort of rugged kickboxing or defending himself.

15:40The only other thing that's acrobatic out of Morpheus in this minute is when he jumps up to kind of hold onto the ceiling to avoid him. But even that, you can say the impetus is him dodging Smith's attack. But that one is like a capoeira move. Oh, you're right. It's... It's like... Yeah. That's his only real kind of like fancy flourish. Yeah. In this fight. He's trying. Everything else is... He's really trying. Everything else is scrambling, self-defensive. And that one is like... Feels like a show-off-y move. I don't know if it completely fits in with the rest of the fight. He's like, I've tried all these different things. Let me try my special flashy movement. Maybe it'll save me. Oh, no. It didn't work. Oh, no. Let me hit L2 and do a special.

16:21Nope. Yeah. Unfortunately not. Not working on this one. I like the use of dust in this scene. Yes. It's very... It adds a quality and a texture to the scene that is intriguing. Because, again, it makes it a little more, you know... I mean, it really looks like those punches are really powerful, too. Well, and plus, because there's this mixture of this gritty, you know, like we have this human element, right? The blood coming out of Morpheus' nose. Oh, yeah, man. It's mixed with this sort of, you know, gritty, dirty, dusty... Plaster. ...hotel, you know, ugly bathroom. And it's that mix that really makes the scene stand out, I think.

17:01Yeah. And, again, and also, you know, if you want to take it even further, it's like, you know, we're seeing Morpheus lose. And to see him in this state, you know, all dusty and, you know, broken, it's pretty bad for our heroes. Sad stuff. Heroes. Oh, boy. And he can't get out of it. That's the thing. He can't get out of it. And he knows that. And we're seeing Morpheus, because we've seen him so far being this really cool guy. Yeah. Walking around, you know, knowing what he's doing, having a plan. And here we are. Yeah. Here we are. Agent Smith shows up. And, of course, all the rest of the guys, the crew, they're escaping. Running away. Okay. There's no one to save poor Morpheus. Poor Morpheus.

17:42Yes. In a last-ditch effort, he just jumps up on the corner there and tries to kick him a bit, but Agent Smith just grabs his leg and... And that's it. Yeah. It's over. Smith just brushes himself a little bit, stands up, and he's just... So it says, take him. Take him. To SWAT boys. Phil, can't you mention here the storyboard? Oh, man. Don't worry. I'm saving that for after we analyze the whole minute, we're going to go into the 1996 zone. Oh, okay. It's the 1996 zone. Alex, in case you didn't... But this wasn't the 1996, was it? Mm-hmm. The storyboard? Oh, no, it's not.

18:23But, yeah, the storyboard has, like, triple the amount of cops in the whole room. Which reminds me, funnily enough, similar to, for those who know, the sequence, the chase sequence in Star Wars Episode 4, where Han... Or just Star Wars? Or just Star Wars. I'm just specifying so no one's lost. Okay, okay, okay. I know. Because people go, what? The Last Jedi? When Han Solo makes a sort of brave move to dash into the area where there's potentially... Well, he doesn't know if their stormtroopers are there. This is in the Death Star, when they're saving Leia. Yeah, he's chasing the stormtroopers away.

19:04That's what it was. He's chasing the stormtrooper down the hall. He's just being brave and says, I'm going to get this stormtrooper. And at the end of the hall, he encounters, like, eight stormtroopers. And he's like, oh, okay, now I'm leaving. He forgets this plan. In the original release of Star Wars, there was, like, eight stormtroopers. Right. It's just, like, a dead end. Right. But in the special edition, which came in 97, they added, like, this entire army of stormtroopers in the background, which obviously was the intention, I imagine, of what George was going for. But he couldn't do that at the time. Allegedly. Either way, there's a difference. Yes. And it's interesting to compare that, because here we have a similar thing, where you look at the storyboard, like you mentioned earlier.

19:44Yeah, the storyboard by Steve Scrubbs. Has, like... Same kind of 90 degree angle, too. Triple the amount of SWAT guys. Oh, yeah. It's like... Maybe 30. The whole room is just filled with SWAT guys. Which is a really cool visual. It is. But obviously, you know, when you go and make a movie like this, you don't have infinite resources. And so they have to resort to... A dozen. A bundle of SWAT men. But it still works. It still works. Oh, it does. I'm just saying it's an interesting thing. Yeah. That it's, um... And a visual they would kind of recycle in the second Matrix. Oh, you're right. It's part of the art. Remind me. Oh, don't worry. I think... I mean, it's obviously not a confined space, but at some point, spoiler alert, they... The, you know, 30 or 50 Smiths just pile on top of Neo to try to...

20:25Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, same 90 degree angle. It's true. Huh, didn't think about that. So maybe they were finally getting their chance. Their chance. I love that shot. Although those are all CG. Some obviously so. Yeah. So, you know, in this case, I think these are practical stuntmen in SWAT gear. Oh, yeah. It's the real deal. It's the real deal. I just love that shot. I love that 90 degree shot of, you know, Morpheus just trying and then just getting knocked down. And you just get that, you know, wonderful... It's very comic book. Very comic book. Definitely. And then we have Tank sounding like he also has a cold. No. No. Do we think these SWAT guys are also computers or computer programs?

21:11I think they're people. The way that Smith is? So, theoretically, though, if these are people in the Matrix, hooked up to the Matrix, who very much operate by the rules of the world, I guess Smith is just assuming I beat him up enough that he's not gonna be able to take these guys? I mean... I think so. It seems, I guess, plot convenient or it doesn't wind up affecting the plot, but it sure seems like Smith would have been able to subdue him on his own better than these 8-10 guys would have. Well, I think, in my opinion, the idea is sort of, you know, Smith is taking on this

21:52role of sort of... A government agent? Yes. A government agent who... To them. Yeah. Who... He does a certain amount of things, but ultimately he is the top of the line when it comes to authority. So, you know, obviously for the smaller things, the SWAT's gonna do the rest of the work. So, I think it'd be a bit odd if Agent Smith would do everything up to, like, carrying Morpheus back to the base. Also, yeah, I'm sure, like, I completely know what you're talking about, Alex, because I know that... But I don't know, like, logically, in the world how they're thinking what was going on or how Agent Smith is thinking that these guys can handle Morpheus.

22:34I think he is just beaten up enough. He's beaten up, yeah, exactly. But story-wise, we established that the SWAT guys were fairly dangerous because they, you know, they killed Mouse. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They just... But I think it's safe to assume that Morpheus is so exhausted at this point and beaten up that really this is just to sort of, you know, take him in. Yeah. Transport him. Yeah. Also, that light that you were commenting about, that's the flashlight. It's the flashlight. From the agent that got possessed by Smith. Agent that got possessed. What am I talking about? From the SWAT guy that got possessed. SWAT guy that got possessed. That got, what's that word? Taken over?

23:14Yeah, taken over, yeah. Overwritten? Overwritten. Mm-hmm. Nice. Nice. Yeah. And... It was fun. I have a background in computer science. Oh, hey! So once I started watching this movie, you know, many years later, I started, you know, going, oh, that's really clever. Like, have you guys, has anyone commented yet on the usage of the term agent? No. No. Yes, you can be our first guest. All right. So, in artificial intelligence, an agent is, to put it in layman's terms, an agent is something that does something. Okay. Oh. If you're talking about, so for example, if you have an artificially intelligent thermostat,

23:59you know, it would take in the stimuli of your environment, see that your room is whatever temperature, and raise or lower the temperature accordingly. Oh. So that's what an agent is. Okay. So then... So I mean, it takes in stimuli and performs actions. Okay. That's interesting. Wow. Yeah. That's clever. That's the technical term. Hey. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And here, they're agents, but they're also agents. Yeah, they're double agents. Well, that's a different term. That's cool. That's cool stuff. And that one, I didn't get that reference until college. Do you have any other neat references that you might recall?

24:42Did we mention the fact that Neo's name, Thomas, that Anderson means son of man? Yeah. We talked about that the other day. We got that one. We got that one. That one's in the bag. Oh, well. If we think of any. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of, but I'm pretty sure Sentinel means something as well. I was going to ask about that one. Sentinel. Yeah. We had like wild guesses of like soldiers and things. Remember Sentinels? Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah. Back in the day. Roman times. Yeah. We'll think of some stuff if something comes to mind. Anyway, they're getting out of the manhole, which is an important thing because there's this whole scene that I would love to talk about in the 1996 zone because there's this

25:28whole scene that was taken out early on in the script and development phase, but they did draw storyboards for it as well. And I'll upload that on the Facebook, hopefully, if I remember, because I keep forgetting. But yeah, Alex, in case you didn't know, me and on this show, sometimes I go back to the 1996 draft and then the 1998 draft and talk about the differences and stuff that they take out. And in this case, there's a pretty big scene and then that's our little section, the 1996 zone. We also have a jingle that... Well, I think we can go to the 96 zone unless anyone else has anything to add to the minute.

26:08No, I think I'm good. I'm good too. All right. Play the jingle. Ah, there it was. Our good old jingle. Unfortunately, the Christmas jingle is gone. It's not Christmas anymore. It's January now. Back to form. Back to regular jingle. Yeah. Sorry, Alex. Just wanted to let you know we put that in later. No, I figured that out. We're not crazy. All right. So, well... Tell us, Phil. All right. What information can you share? So, in the 1996 version, what happens is Morpheus is still there with them.

26:52The agent didn't put his hands into the wet wall. The oven. The oven. In the wet wall. And he didn't, you know, strangle Neo. And Morpheus didn't actually retort yet. But they all kind of traveled down together, down to the basement. Wait, wait, wait. Back up. So, Morpheus... This is, you know, in the wet wall. Oh, I see. They all go together. They all go together. With Morpheus. With Morpheus. And Morpheus stops down into the pipe that Trinity finds, you know, that little hatch Okay. that they all get into as they escape. So, when they're at the bottom, he and Trinity go... All of them go. Oh, they all open the little hatch, the manhole type thing. Yeah, and Morpheus is like, let's get down there.

27:33Okay. And this is what happens. I can read it from the script. Please. On the wet wall, Trinity was the one who was getting shot at through the wall. And so, what she does is, uh, Trinity finds her gun first. Bullet holes pop out of the wall. She strafes the room, sending cops diving for cover. They continue. Trinity exposed for a moment. When a creeping cop smashes a fist through and grabs a fistful of her hair, he starts to yank her out when Neo kicks. He's bursting through the plaster and splintering lathe, knocking the cop out. They quickly sink, out of sight. So, now they're going down to the basement. In this part of the basement, a dark concrete cavern, was the main mechanical room. There are four enormous boilers, dinosaur-like technology that once pumped hot water out

28:16like arteries. Yeah. Pretty good descriptions, those Wachowskis. Black and bloody, they squeeze out of the ceiling into the tangled web of pipes. Their enemies are waiting for them. Blinding lights cut open the darkness as gas-masked figures fire grenade launchers. And you remember that in the movie. Smoke blossoms from the green metal canisters. Morpheus never stops moving, searching the floor. He finds what he needs, the cover of the catch basin. Cypher watches him pry open the gate. When a gas can bounces near him. Come on! Cypher seems to trip as the cloud envelopes him. So now you get the context. Envelops him.

28:56Now you get the context. So, interior main deck. Cypher's body begins to shiver uncontrollably. And Tank says, nerve gas. The audience has to know that. So, interior basement, Matrix Day. Morpheus watches Cypher disappear into the smoke, then follows the others down the wet black hole. And then interior catch basin. In the Matrix, obviously. They crawl through greasy black water in a three-foot diameter pipe that feeds into the sewer drain. So they're all in the water. Interesting. And then interior basement. Gas-masked apparitions find the open hole. Cypher is carried out. And this is exterior Hotel Lafayette. So now this is exterior. Cypher is carried out.

29:36Handcuffed. His body still shaking. Handcuffed. Yeah. They caught him, remember? Yeah, but aren't they in on the whole thing? That's the thing. We'll find out here. His body still shaking. Mucus bubbling out of his nose. As he is led past Agent Smith, it almost seems that both men smile. Agent Smith says, we have them now. Interior, sewer, main. Neo punches out the screen. Then spills down into the main water trough. Oily water forms around them as they wade across the man-made underground river towards the service catwalk. Neo is about to pull himself out when he sees them coming.

30:17Flashlights and laser sights sweep at them. As cops in helmets and heavy armor, looking more machine than human, fill both ends of the tunnel. There is a single manhole cover above them. Morpheus whispers to Trinity, you have to get Neo out, understand? That's all that matters now. And Trinity goes, Morpheus, don't. He must get out. Do you understand me? She nods. A font of water erupts as Morpheus leaps for the manhole ladder. His coat flying open like wings of a manta ray. And then cops are like, there he is, that's him. And then poles of lights wash over him as he hauls himself into the surface. He's setting for the street. And then Trinity urges the others to follow her, grabbing Neo.

30:58They wade quickly, I mean, quietly away from the chaos. And then exterior street, Morpheus shoots out of the sewer, but the police are waiting for him. And there's like a lot of descriptions, but I'll just say it in, you know, just to save time, I'll just say that he's surrounded by like a gazillion cops. All around the manhole, Morpheus is out there. And then Agent Smith shows up there outside. So that's the scene that where Trinity's coming out of at the end of our minute, out of the manhole. That's supposed to be where all these cops are surrounded, Morpheus, and Morpheus gets out. And then Agent Smith has this little tranquilizer dart gun. It's like supposed to look like one of those high-tech guns that, you know, like the one that took out the bug or the other thing. And then, you know, tries to shoot at Morpheus, but nothing really happens.

31:40And then he's like, then he says... This is outside already, right? Yeah, yeah. Morpheus confronts Smith and he goes, you know, so we meet at last. And you are? Smith. I am Agent Smith. You call it the same to me. Right? And then Agent Smith says, I've been waiting for this moment. And then faster than a snake spits, Morpheus cracks Smith with a jaw-breaking right. Wow. And then Morpheus goes, oh, so have I. And then Agent Smith smiles. And then they have this big, huge fight. And it's pretty cool. You should check out the storyboards. He uses a manhole cover to like frisbee Agent Smith into one of the SWAT vans. And all the cops jump on him.

32:20And he's fighting all these cops. And then eventually he loses, of course. And then the scene continues as normal. So that's what I've been wanting to talk about. Well, thank you. You're welcome. For that addition. So essentially, the entire scene is the same, really content-wise. Well, not content-wise, but what happens, what events happen. But it's sort of extended in a way, and we're in a different location. If only they shot it. That would be such a great gem of an extended scene. That'd be so weird. Do you think it would help? It wouldn't have been bad, necessarily. It wouldn't have been bad. I mean, the movies are really brisk, two hours, 13 minutes. And this would have just, what, added maybe five or maybe three.

33:01Yeah. And I think that it would have also extended the whole scene of them coming back from the Oracle's, what happens. Because this is pretty quick, if you think about it. It gets captured and boom, you know. Yeah. But I guess it makes sense, because they have to get to other stuff as well. One more thing. At the end, Agent Smith beats him, and he goes, and he says, you can't win. And then Morpheus smiles. Already have. Dun, dun, dun. I have no idea what he's talking about. What does he mean by that? We'll have to find out next time. On The Matrix 1996. Yes. And that concludes our episode. I was just going to say, before we conclude the episode, I bet you a producer looked at

33:43that scene and said, come up with something that's not a sewer, because shooting in water sucks. Oh. That sounds very plausible. That sounds like Joel Silver. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just... Classic Joel. Well, I think that's it for a minute 84. For January 1st, 2018. So I think this calls for just a little bit of promotion. Anyone who's new listening, welcome to The Matrix Minute. Welcome. A podcast where we dissect every minute of The Matrix. Or try to in like a really basic way. We talk about each minute. Let's put it that way. Yes. The best place to find us is The Matrix Minute. One. Everything is there. You can find all the links, the goodies.

34:23Go to Facebook. Go to our group. It's all of our listeners who have kept up till now. We thank you so much for hanging out, listening. Putting up with our shenanigans. And just being listeners. Thank you so much for joining us on this journey. Yep. And Alex. And thank you, Alex. Of course. Very much. Thank you, Alex. For coming in so speedily. At notice. Just to help us out. Help us out for January 1st. Yes. And the other times. And please let everyone know where they can find you. Yeah, you can find me on the podcast Galaxy Quest Minute. Much like this one, except for the movie Galaxy Quest. Yeah. As of, I believe, this episode's release, we are about a third of the way through the movie.

35:07So it's not too daunting if you want to kind of binge and catch up. And we're available on all your various podcatchers, as well as on Twitter and Facebook. Just search for us. You can find us there. Exactly. Go search that up. Galaxy Quest Minute. Boom, boom, boom. Da-da-da-da-da. Okay. Okey-dokey. Thanks, everyone. I love that movie. And we'll catch you on Wednesday for a new episode with Alex again. Yeah. Alex is coming back. Yeah. Bye-bye. Okay. Sweet.