Offline with Jon Favreau - How "The Matrix" Created Modern Silicon Valley

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Are we all living in The Matrix? Eh, probably not. But our tech obsessed, social media driven world is a lot closer to the reality The Matrix posed in 1999 than the Wachowskis probably ever dreamed of! New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and host of Hysteria Erin Ryan, join Max to watch the beloved sci fi film and break down the ways The Matrix inspired a generation of tech bros and why so many people — from the online right to the LGBTQ+ community to recovering tech journalists — see themselves in its allegory. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

I found myself mentally quipping these obnoxious millennial core meme-y quotes to myself as I was watching it. Like, Neo dodging the bullets. Like, me when I say something controversial about Taylor Swift. Like, Neo making the bullets stop and fall down. Me when I log off. I was just like, oh, I have been internet pilled in a way that The Matrix did not anticipate.

Those are pretty good, though. Those are pretty funny. Those are good ones. And that is something the movie kind of encourages, deliberately or not, is to like, if you are an online person,

this movie is about you being online. I'm Max Fisher. I'm Erin Ryan. With us is Jamel Bui. Jamel, thank you so much for joining us. Jamel's a New York Times columnist and also the co-host of the great movie podcast, Unclear and Present Danger. Thank you so much for having me.

I feel like I should say for listeners that technically our podcast is a politics podcast based off of movies. Sometimes people get very upset when we don't like recap a movie. So I feel like I should let folks know that so they don't get annoyed. Well, one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on this series is that what we are doing with the Offline Movie Club is kind of doing for internet movies what you have been doing for 90s action thrillers about politics and national security. So it felt like a very natural fit to have you on. Well, thank you so much for having me.

So to introduce the show, this is the Offline Movie Club. Every episode, we watch a beloved movie, then discuss how that movie reflects or shapes how we think about tech and the internet. This week, we are talking about The Matrix, the story of a gang of Gen X hackers, discover the world as one big computer program, rise up against the machine overlords that run it, which, this being 1999, involves wearing an enormous amount of black leather. It is almost impossible to sum up this movie's cultural impact, pack all the ideas, but Jamel, what do you think makes this movie important for how we think about technology and the Internet? Oh, wow.

You know, this first of all, I think this movie captures like a certain ethos of what the Internet could be or might have become. That was, I think, prevalent in the late 90s, which is like the Internet as this liberatory thing. And that very much still put it i think the language of how we talk about tech tech is something that can like liberate people the internet that's something that can liberate people um you know although in the film the um the crew of the nebuchadnezzar uh they are appear to be living in squalor uh they see themselves as being having been freed of the matrix and having been freed um of this control and that for them is is a kind of freedom and liberation that i think i think this movie does like very much tap into that like that uh vision of what

the internet could be yeah there is something to the way this movie captures and conveys this idea of the internet as both a tool of authoritarian control and also a like vessel for liberation that um i know it like comes from some of the like william gibson and some of the cyberpunk authors that were predated the matrix but i feel like it's really still very much with us um erin what do you think makes this movie important for how we think about tech and the internet? Well, I think that if you're around my age, so I graduated from high school in the early aughts, just prior to 9-11, not to date myself, but everybody around my age has a very clear memory of the first time that they saw this movie and how incredibly impactful it was on them and

how people came out of the theater just be like this is like i cannot overstate the extent to which this was a phenomenon yeah this was a full-on you mentioned because it was the late 90s there was a lot of leather i think that this movie made that a thing. Oh, totally. In the late 90s. Unfortunately, it also made Nu Metal a thing. I don't know if it made Nu Metal. I don't know if it made.

That's unfair. Pin Rob Zombie on the Wachowskis. Anyway, I'm sorry, Erin. Please go on. I think that something that is super interesting about it is at the time it felt like we were watching a movie about like philosophy, different philosophical approaches to what us standing on the threshold of this new tech could mean. And it was it felt very speculative. And now looking back, it seems very in some ways like predictive, but not necessarily in the way that the movie intended, which we're going to get into.

There is something fascinating about, like you're saying, the movie coming out at this moment where we're all starting to realize the Internet is going to be a thing. It's very hard to untangle the degree to which they are accurately, for the most part, with extreme precision, accurately predicting what the Internet has become or just because because the movie is so influential, actually giving shape to that. I just think that you could not find another piece of culture that is more influential in the last 25 years old like we i was watching it yesterday i watch it i've watched it so many times but when i was watching it yesterday just to kind of get brushed up on it it was it all holds up like it was crazy how this is 25 years 1999 was 25 years ago which doesn't seem that's not right um but it holds the peak of human civilization yeah i mean well yes we'll definitely get into it in a way but like was i mean prince But it holds up so well. The peak of human civilization. I know. I know we're going to talk about that, too. Yeah.

I mean, yes, we'll definitely get into it in a way. But, like, was, I mean, Prince sang about partying like it's 1999, and he was kind of right. Like, that was really the last time that we could really party. Right. Right? Like, that was the last, like, was it the last good time? Prince and the Wachowskis. Yes.

They knew. They knew. 1999 was it. What did they know about 9-11 and when did they know it? I don't know, but they should have told. Maybe if they were more online, they could have told more people. Yeah, I do think that there are so many through lines to this movie about the Internet that have held up so well that it is shocking to watch it now and know that it is predictive and not a commentary on everything that has come before. Like, obviously, all of the internet subcultures that this gives rise to. Jamal, like you were talking about the idea that it is like both a tool of authoritarian interest, but also the place of revolutionary struggle against them.

Also, the idea that the internet is simultaneously unreal, but is also the place where we project the truest versions of ourselves is like incredibly prescient um is it the truest versions of ourselves though well that was that's what they in that scene that first scene with um lawrence fisher and kenyan overuse when they're loaded into the white room and they're talking about like why you look the way you look in the matrix and he says that when you go into the matrix you appear as the projected vision of yourself and that was part of the like trans allegory of the movie and like the wachowskis have talked about how that was part of there where it's like you go into the matrix and you

vision yourself the character switch was originally supposed to be i think i hope i don't get this backwards uh um to present as a man in the quote-unquote real world in the future and then present as a woman in the Matrix. And that was supposed to be kind of a wink at this like trans allegory of it. Yeah, I mean, and that doesn't we didn't even really get into the red pill of it all. Like the red pill motif, like we talk about its overall influence. The red pill has been a phrase that has been adapted by the worst people who took the wrong lessons from this film and i have no i will say i've noticed um there was sort of an uptick in red pill references for years and years you know red pill is like realizing that like the women are

really keeping you down like the systems keep whatever um until the wachowskis came out and were like listen it's about being trans. The red pill is estrogen. I've seen like a slight downward turn in incels and, you know, internet MRAs using red pill terminology. Yeah, unfortunately, the Wachowskis did ruin their fun. Yeah, they made their fun. They made the movie. They get to ruin it. That's true, yeah. The last thing I will say about why I think this movie is important, They made the movie. They get to ruin it. was like spending time there, like reporting there. There's the like this entire generation of the like Elon Musk at the top end to Mark Zuckerberg at the younger end, who come up thinking that this movie is about them. And this movie is about Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley startups. And they like build the ideas that they take from this movie that they take to be about

them into the products. And like, we'll get into that in the questions when we talk about the movie's real world impact. But I just wanted to mention it now because I think that it is still like very much with us. Like anytime you log into Twitter or Facebook, I think you're seeing the impacts of this movie. All right. So let's get into the questions. It's a set of topics we discuss each episode

about how the movie shapes, how we see the world. First one, what is the biggest thing this movie gets right? Erin, what do you think? Okay, well, I don't know if this was intended in the film, but something that I kind of took away, there's this part where I think the agents are interrogating Neo. And they're talking about you know the world that was created for them and it's like a world that people love and i just i've been thinking a lot about

the divergence the great like divergence between who we are in real life and who we have put online like if in 10 000 years somebody came to like a scorched earth and they found like a several tetrabyte hard drive and on it there was like a bunch of social media profiles and they were like, oh, we can. They would be like just like very egotistical assholes who never really have any real pain or struggle that they don't try sort of divergence of the public versus private self. And, you know, the people who have been liberated from the Matrix, the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, live kind of in squalor. And in the Matrix, they live just normal human lives that seem comparably luxurious and cool. And that to me just like struck me as like, oh, that's like what we say we are on social media versus like what we are in real life. We're like eating snot and like we're all wearing like beaten up sweaters from Zara in 2011, which is the last time Zara made good sweaters. But they're getting ripped up. And, you know, but like in and then on social media, on the Internet, we are pretending that we're this.

So this is this is a movie about how when you post on Instagram, you are posting an idealized version of your own life that looks way cooler than i think it's it's about the way that we choose to represent ourselves and the things that we choose to erect digitally as representations of the self and how they're not like they they've diverged so much that it it doesn't i don't know it's there there's. There's this interesting dichotomy in the movie with the characters, our heroes, who realize that you see the Matrix, understand what's happening, and know that they can go in

and use it to create the idealized versions of themselves that have super strength and super powers and are super smart, and everyone else who doesn't realize that, and they're just kind of like normal humdrum versions of themselves. It's like people using the glam filter on TikTok versus people just going raw dog on TikTok. Seeing the Matrix is having access to an even better glam filter.

Yes, exactly. It's like choosing to you get used to seeing yourself with a glam filter on. So you're like, this is me. This is how I look. And when you see like your real self, you're like this is me this is how i look and when you see like your real self you're like no this is no you like reject it and so it seemed very predictive to me about the way that the inner waking up yeah seeing how the yeah exactly like waking up is to be like oh who i'm putting out there is not in any way who i actually am it is amazing to think that they would have anticipated that in 19,

like what was social media in 1999? Like instant messenger? Do we have Friendster back then? I think there might've been Friendster, definitely AOL instant messenger. That was around. Yeah. I think MySpace,

right. Yeah. To look at that and to be able to see coming that this is going to be a place where there is this going to be, you are going to have to realize that you are creating a false version of yourself. It's a pretty good prediction. Jamal, what do you think? Would the movie get right?

Well, I mean, first of all, that terrorists would crash vehicles into buildings. Of all of the moments when I cringed during this, I did not think of it during the helicopter crash. But yeah, in retrospect, I see it. But a more serious answer. I think we've been relating to a similar scene where Aiden Smith is interrogating Morpheus. And he's explaining that originally the Matrix was a paradise. Everyone was happy.

It was a massive failure. Entire crops were lost. And I've always thought what insight that captures is that, I mean, you look at Twitter, you look at, I mean, any social media, right? People, as much as people say they want civility, as much as people say they want a kind of place where we can have like reasoned discussion, the fact of the matter is that sort of like all these places feed off of conflict and that the people who use them like the fact

that there is lots of conflict. Part of the draw of Twitter, even now when it's like kind of Musk era, is the opportunity of like seeing, you know, which quote unquote main character emerges and what people are, what terrible things people are going to say about that person. And I really, I really do think, you know,

the fact that this movie, in this film, the machines give up on trying to create a paradise for humanity and just create you know 1999 and create a place that is full of disappointment and and fear and worry and watch and all these things um does actually capture something quite real yeah about not just about like human psychology but about the way our digital spaces have actually developed. Like it turns out there actually really isn't much of a market for a place where people are just like chill with each other.

It's what people want is a place where there can be conflict. It's a great point. That speech is in retrospect, a monologue about how blue sky is never going to take off. Right. Mastodon is never going to be the place.

The people don't want the nice social network. No, you're right. And what's so ironic about that especially is that the overlords in the Matrix create a digital prison for us that promotes struggle and misery and misery grudgingly they do they're kind of dragged into it whereas i think i think the the folks behind facebook and twitter were quite happy to do that right right right um i just i don't have this place for it but fun matrix lore so if the original matrix was like a paradise there you know matrix fans theorized there was a second iteration of the matrix that was like kind of like a nightmare world that was all horrible uh and that didn't work out well and they they

theorize this because in the second film there are all these like weird nightmare creatures that like don't make any sense uh uh in the context of 1989 but do make sense if they are older, older discarded programs from an older iteration of the Matrix. I love the idea that the second Matrix was a like gothic Mary Shelley A24 horror thriller. Right, right, right. It was like hereditary. Wait, there is a second Matrix?

I heard they didn't exist. I heard there's only one Matrix movie, and it was made in 1999, and the story ends at the end of that movie. I recognize the legitimacy of the second Matrix movie, and it definitely takes itself way too seriously, but the action scenes are really good. Yeah, no, I agree. I know that a second matrix movie exists this isn't the point of this this podcast but i do have a i could talk for a very long time in defense of the second matrix movie i i will give you let me i'll give you my one sentence defensive and i'm curious if this aligns with your take on it i think that this second matrix is just a perfect English language, American place, Chinese wuxia kung fu movie that just like very loosely adapts the lore of the first Matrix.

And I love that. I love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So we just got to do it again. Crouching robot. That is not my take, although I think it's a very good one. My take is that I think that movie is a great example of how people can subvert their own creation. The whole point of that movie is that there is no the one. In fact, there were many of these guys.

Right. And so, you know, Neo's task is to break himself out of prophecy. It's like a reverse dune almost but that's right i i buy that because like the wachowskis talk a lot especially when they started to speak more about the movies as trans allegories a line they would use a lot as they would always say ultimately our movies are about love and if you watch the first matrix that doesn't super track because it's a hero's journey about fighting a pure evil but yeah yeah, in the second one, they kind of loop around to like, well, the solution is to synthesis and to like all of us become one super person slash machine collective, which I do not think

is the answer to modern social media. But anyway, part of what I found really interesting is I was thinking about what this movie gets right is how I feel like we have reevaluated so many times over the last 25 years to mean totally different things. And every single time it's true and correct. Like what initially came out, like I took it to be a like sci-fi dystopian cyberpunk story about like what it would be like if the machines took over like what that would look like and then later it became like oh actually we started to see it as more of an allegory for authoritarianism and capitalism and control with the machines mostly is symbolic and now i feel like we've looped all the way back around and we see it as about internets and machine the internet and machines again because now that is synonymous with capitalism and authoritarianism so like i don't know to the extent to which that was deliberate, but I thought it was really interesting how like all of the readings are have become like simultaneously true and kind of built into each other.

I also I want to play a clip from Morpheus explaining the Matrix to Neo to talk about something else. I think this movie got right. The Matrix is everywhere. it is all around us even now in this very room you can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television you can feel it when you go to work when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a slave, Neo.

Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. And Lawrence Fishburne really makes this movie. realized as i was listening to that is they're talking about smell and taste and touch and later when morpheus is a prisoner of the agents the agent when agent smith gets him by himself agent smith talks about how gross it is that he has to smell and taste and touch i never made that connection you're right yeah the people are gross to him yeah i i i do love that scene you know what i hate the most? The smell. It's a pretty good Hugo Weaving. Oh my God, he's so good.

He is so good too. If him or Morpheus had been miscast, this whole movie would fall apart. Hugo Weaving plays it with a perfect level of hamminess that you believe he is a robot trying to play human, but you also believe that he has actual rage underneath the surface. But you know, it's great. No, he's like, he's like, so, okay. The smell scene is actually perfect for this because he's like, if I remember this correctly, he's like, and it's true.

He's like, he's like almost agitated. You have to do it in Hugo Weaving. All right. I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality. whatever you want to call it. I can't stand it anymore. It's the smell.

Are you really getting the pauses? Yes. Yeah, yeah. I've seen this movie like 200 times. Well, one thing that I love about that Morpheus monologue is that it is like you could read that so many different ways. And obviously, like we've talked about the like red pill of it all. And there's a lot of people who read it about like, oh, yes, the prison that of your mind that he's describing as feminism. Or there's like a way to read it now that it's about like it's about Silicon Valley or it's about capitalism or broadly. Or gender.

Right. Or gender. Right, or gender, yeah. And my mind actually kept watching it this time, kept coming back to the Arab Spring, of all things. And I kept thinking about, like, so many popular uprisings, like starting with that one, and ever since, in authoritarian states, like, it's first organized online in what are both these open digital spaces that are these kind of necessary organizing places for revolution but are also controlled and heavily influenced by authoritarian governments and

propaganda so like this idea of digital spaces as both of these things at once and like the place of this intense hero's journey competition between authoritarianism and revolutionary resistance. I just thought it was just like amazingly prescient, especially because it didn't come true for another 12 years after the movie came out. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Okay.

Moving to the next category. What is the smallest thing you think this movie gets right? Weird, quirky little stuff. I will start. If there were a group of renegade programmers who could control reality, at least one of those programmers would be a sex perv who tries to spam the world with porno. I thought that was pretty insightful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was pretty good.

I don't know if there would be one mouse on the team. It would maybe be mostly mouses on the team. Mostly mouses and cyphers. I think it would be mostly mouses and cyphers Mostly mouses and cyphers. That's right. I think it would be mostly mouses and cyphers, especially like the facial hair aspect of cypher. Yes. I think they would be, they would all be horny for Trinity

as much as I hate to, like, I'm glad that she's not overly sexualized in the film. I think that that is a good thing. But they would all be so horny for Trampy. It would definitely go from a love triangle to a love octagon, for sure. There is one scene, actually, the audio that you just played where you can hear Morpheus's clothes squeak as they change his position. And that squeak is very accurate because those would be squeaky, very squeaky outfits. Yeah, it did occur to me, how are they supposed to be running away from these supercomputer

killer robots when they're wearing the squeaky ass leather? It's not the best clothing. As they're running? Yeah. That's not performance gear. No. They failed to predict moisture wicking stretch. That's true.

Yeah, all of their technology, they did not have moisture wicking. It was very disappointing. No Uniqlo in the matrix. Still a couple of years away. The Wachowskis had incredible imagination, but they couldn't see that coming. I think the small thing that gets right is almost certainly there'd be plenty of people who are like, go back into the matrix for a really delicious steak why not plug me right back in that is that steak is the is like best looking steak on film like straight up oh yeah maybe only the only thing that comes close is the steak they eat in twister i don't when do they eat steak and twister i don't remember they meet at a character's like mom's house or something and they have steak and eggs and they have an amazing looking i don't know. When do they eat steak and Twister? I don't remember. They meet at a character's like mom's house or something and they have steak and eggs and they have an amazing looking.

I don't even like steak that much. They have a great looking steak and Twister. The way Joey Pants eats that steak in the Matrix makes it look like the best thing you'll ever eat. Well, the thing that is so funny about that shot is that he clearly I'm sure they were doing it a thousand times and he went through 100 steaks. He fucked up cutting it. So it's actually two pieces of steak and one is dangling off of the other. And that does actually make it look a little bit better, unfortunately. Wow. I kind of want to listen to an entire podcast episode

of the best-looking meals in cinema. I mean, it's everything in Tempo Bo. I feel like it's going to be the winner. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Times out of 10. I think any pizza in an animated film automatically looks like the best true. Yeah. Best food ever. Spaghetti and meatballs in an animated film. Miyazaki food is maybe peak food in movies. Yeah, I do. It's a good point. Like, why are they not taking more snack breaks in this? Like when Neo has the cookie, he loves that cookie. It makes him him feel better i don't believe that they're not pulling over and getting doritos especially because consequence free you can't get you can't gain weight yeah no heart right that's true yeah

wow they didn't they they must have cut the scene where like neo's blood was like no cholesterol like it makes i'm the one this isn't going to affect me whatsoever. It's just like putting like soft serve ice cream directly into his mouth and his body just can reject it like they're bullets. Something else I thought it got right is it really nailed the late 1990s Gen X malaise of we all have high paying corporate jobs, but we're still very angry at the world. Like there's a real we're going to riot at Woodstock 99 to this movie. Yeah. Did this come out before or after Woodstock 99?

I think before because I think Woodstock 99 was over this summer. This was April. Did this cause Woodstock 99? Again, maybe if they had been wearing leather dusters when they rioted. Yeah, maybe. I think this movie also gets right the fact that if you are a light-skinned woman with very dark hair and a small face and a thin neck, that haircut looks amazing on you.

It's a great movie for the pixie cut. The pixie cut or the little flippy, kind of shag, not even a bob yet. The Trinity haircut, if you are of a specific body type and like it just like looks so good. Yeah, I will say. You are Carrie Ann Moss in 1999. It's a narrow condition set, but it is a useful one.

I think there's a lot of like dancers who are built that way. Like I think if you're just like a real petite lady, that is a great haircut for you. You don't need to listen to the Matrix and wear your hair long. You know, you don't need to blow, free yourself from blow drying, you know. I did appreciate that even if they didn't take time to snack, they did all take a second to make sure they looked incredibly cool when they went back to the matrix yeah yeah you know i well we can get into that a little bit more later but like they got they looked distractingly cool when they went back into the matrix like if i were just outside of the building where they came to get morpheus and i saw a bunch of people that looked like that walking into the

building i would like clock them i'd be like like, those are, what's going on? It's too conspicuous. Yeah, exactly. They should have gone in as just like regular looking, like slightly overweight people. Should more revolutionary extremist movements try to look really cool while they're doing it? No, I think they should try to look less cool.

Okay. I think they should look frumpier. I do think it's interesting that like, what looked cool is like this extremely hyper specific aesthetic. Like no one in there is like dressed. No one. Like if it were me, if it were me, I would be like, I'm dressing like Paul Newman. You would definitely pick a more timeless look. I'm Miles Davis.

High Ivy style. Some nice elbow patches yeah i have i have a semi-automatic weapon under this uh tweed jacket i'm katherine hepburn i got my hands in my pockets and my high-rise pants i got a gamely tilted hat on i'm wearing a fedora i would join this revolutionary movement yeah it would be confusing to people. What's going on? Hey, boss, looks like Grace Kelly... Is bombing the building. Grace Kelly is doing a terrorist attack. Grace Kelly has joined Al-Qaeda.

Looks like Grace Kelly has hit the second tower. We can laugh because we remember it. That's right. We're laughing with respect. what do we think is the biggest thing this movie gets wrong it's tough to pick this out but i did find a couple but i'm curious if you guys have any i think i think it relates to i mean the fact that the group of um the crew of the number canizer does not contain any sort of you know insane socially maladjusted incel types is actually like i think a major thing it gets wrong this idea that this the internet this sort of this sort of liberatory take of the internet

this would not contain any kind of like serious social maladjustment. Cypher, he is like venal, right? Like he doesn't like living in the real world anymore, but he doesn't appear to be insane. He's just like, I don't want to be here anymore. Mouse is a pervert, but like within like normal range of like, you know. Yeah, right, and played for jokes. Right. Yeah, it's never non-consensual for Mouse. like within like normal range of like yeah right and played for jokes right yeah but there's no

it's never non it's never non-consensual for mouse he like created that he's not perving on people but yeah i'm sorry go ahead no no i'm just i'm just saying i actually think i i think the the notion that the internet would not just cultivate and inculcate sort of like positive values or expressive values, but actually like deeply, um, and that's just negative, like socially maladjusted,

authoritarian, um, sort of like the dark side of the human psyche that it would also develop and inculcate these values and its users, um, is a thing that the movie totally missed. Yeah. I have a tape for when we get to what would be

different if this came out today i have a take on on how it would deal with these uh one smaller thing admittedly that they did get wrong that had me laughing a lot at the movie is the like very quaint view of digital surveillance that like the agents are just kind of wandering around hoping they're going to run into one of the main characters. Like, I just read this New Yorker story about the New York sanitation department scanning across hundreds of CCTV cameras to catch someone who was dumping soil and track them back to their house. So, like, the garbage man has better digital surveillance than the agent in the Matrix. OK, but the garbage man also has better digital surveillance than people who investigate rape

because they're like tens of thousands of like untested rape kits. And police are like, we can't do anything about it. So, yeah. So, I mean, it's a mixed bag. It's a mixed trash bag. It's a mixed bag. The biggest thing the movie gets wrong. You know, I think that it tries to explain away these moments um but i think that the way

that the bodies look both like i think the way that like neo's body is supposed to be like emaciated and stuff when i just feel like people would be like chubbier um yeah he looks great when he wakes up in the pod right and that And that, you know, in the matrix, there's nobody who is like, um, I, in the matrix, like everybody's body is like perfect, even though they're like, oh, this isn't the perfect world. Everyone's still, there's no like fat people in the matrix. Sure. So it's not really reflection of the different sizes of people that like actually exist in the real world. I also found myself, this is like weird, but it was filmed in Australia, right? It was filmed in Sydney, Australia. There are Chicago streets they're talking about. They're on Wabash. They're on state in Wabash. They're running around. Like I lived in Chicago for a long time and I'm distracted by the fact that these are loop streets, but they're not in Chicago. I think it's, we're supposed to think it's Chicago.

Right. But it's not because I'm looking at it and it's not. So I get it. It's like I don't know why it's like a hyper fixation of mine when something's supposed to take place in Chicago and it doesn't. I get so mad. Like the movie Wicker Park was filmed in Montreal and I got I hate it because it is not in Chicago and it's supposed to be in Chicago so anyway isn't it like every Chicago movie not directed by John Hughes does not actually take place in Chicago no there's like the first Batman movie the first Chris Nolan Batman movie does take place like Gotham is Chicago um and then the Transformers I watched one of the Transformers movies in a movie theater on Navy Pier that is destroyed in the movie.

Oh, that's cool. So it was like a cool thing. That's fun. Yeah, they fucked up Chicago. Anyway, that's a me thing. I get really upset with like Chicago misrepresentation. The real Matrix is when the machines try to trick you into thinking that Sydney is Chicago. We're not anywhere near the loop. one thing I thought they got wrong that like movies just were allowed to get wrong in the

90s and 2000s is to do this like kind of hand waving about what quote unquote computer hacking is where there's just this like thing they do in like the net or golden eye where they just like hammer at a keyboard and they're like, oh, yes, we hacked the mainframe. Like you could still get away with that because nobody knew what hacking was in the 90s. But now we know it's just like, oh, it's a phishing scam where they steal your password. So you have to be able to be sophisticated about it. I think that people who make movies just don't have any friends who are hackers, just like they don't have any friends who are journalists. Because I feel like movies get journalism wrong, except for Spotlight. But they get journalism wrong in a similar way where it's just like that. Most people just think it's this like a woman sleeping with their sources.

That's what journalism is to most movie people. Yeah. And then like the person that's the subject of the story would get a phone call. It's like turn the TV on and it's a news story about them. And nobody called them telling them that they were doing a story about them to like check facts or give them a chance to speak about themselves. I feel like it's just Hollywood nonsense. I would love to see a movie with realistic hacking in it. Just sort of like, I got,

we got to hack into the hack past the firewall. And then he picks up his cell phone. He dials a couple of numbers. He's like, Hey, I need you to confirm for me is this your home address you gotta send when you were a child some phishing emails to him try to get him to log into his paypal account his bank information that article from the cut the article curl from the cut that resulted in the women who is the descendant of

the roosevelts handing a man fifty thousand in a shoebox. I want to see it from the hacker's perspective. That article. That's about Morpheus. That's Neo at the other end of that article. Oh, man, that would be funny. Or we could do it like this. We could do a split screen where there's two hackers in the same room. And then one of them is like, okay, I'm going to run out and do some errands.

Why don't you like hack and stuff? Do you want some Cheetos? And then we do a split screen and we see the hacker just kind of typing and then the other guy just like living his life and at the end he's like did you do it yep i did it i did one piece of feedback i had that you reminded me of with cheetos is when we cut to what's what's the name of the guy who is always like the operator tank or dozer and tank yeah yeah i think yeah dozer is a dozer is the operator all right tank is the bigger dude that's right every time we see dozer at his workstation there's not a single snack there there's not a

single lacroix i don't buy it monster energy drink that's That's right. Yeah. All right. Our next category moment you most related to personally. I have a small one. The that first scene with Neo, the very first one where he tells his friends that he's upset because he saw something strange on the Internet and they tell him he needs to get out more. Yeah, I've I've I've had that experience reading too many tweets about climate change. I've been there. Sounded familiar. I think we scripted an episode of how we got here that started with you saying, Aaron, I saw something strange on the internet this week.

And I'm upset about it. And I'm upset. And you said, follow the white rabbit, Max. I did. I did. And then I realized that I was doing plagiarism. So I don't know. Both of you are kind of online

to an extent, right? Sure, unfortunately. They have it dabbled and extra. Why are you saying that as if you were not? I am saying that we're all extremely online here. Okay, sure.

Right? This is one extremely online circle of trust. I found myself mentally quipping these obnoxious millennial core meme-y quotes to myself as i was watching it like

neo dodging the bullets me going like me when i say something controversial about taylor's like neo uh neo making the bullets stop and fall down me when i log off it's just like oh i've i oh, I have been internet pilled in a way that The Matrix did not anticipate. I mean, that is something. Those are pretty good, though.

Those are pretty funny. Those are good ones. And that is something the movie kind of encourages, deliberately or not, is to like, if you are an online person, this movie is about

you being online. It is about the experience of posting on the internet. Yeah, but I never, like, here's the thing. nobody ever is or looks as cool as trinity running around a wall in like a full shiny leather outfit it's pretty cool and beating up a bunch of cops when they're doing internet stuff but so many people think they look that cool when they fire off a tweet nobody should think that that is the danger of this film nobody should think that uh one other thing that i related to and i don't know

jamelle is a fellow new york times or i don't know if this resonated with you too that thing where it's the first day on a new job and the boss keeps trying to challenge you to a kung fu match like we've all been there right like orientation at the times like for another con take me into the dojo at 6 20 and saying stop trying to hit me and hit me that was that was your first day as well right yeah my first day i deemed it where he challenged me i was like breathing really heavily he was like you think that's air you think that's air yeah i always thought that when you guys did that on pulitzer day it was just like for show like take out the jumping program and all the Pulitzer people are jumping from the balconies.

But it's good to know that it's real. Yeah, so would you say you better come quick because David Sanger is fighting Peter Baker? I'll say I related to just listening to Dragula Rod Herman remix. Unfortunately. It was pretty great. Yeah. I like that song.

It's on my gym playlist. I lift weights to it. You unironically listened to Nu Metal from the late 90s? I'm impressed. Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches, my friend. That is an industrial metal classic, classic right like it is unfortunately yeah that's not new metal come on yeah that new metal is like your your fried dirt yeah that's new metal i i over the weekend i was like i wanted to prep for this so i was like let

me listen to some like old podcasts to hear what other people said about the matrix you know get some good research and when i pulled it up on spotify i saw the soundtrack and i was like oh i should download this and listen to it on a hike and like 20 minutes in i was just listening to romstein like in griffith park and i was like i can't believe this is how we used to live like this is it sounds really cool but like making eye contact with people be like if they had any idea the garbage music i was listening to right now straight to jail straight to jail that's right most unintentionally revealing moment okay so we were talking earlier about how silicon valley probably sees themselves as the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar in this. They are the agents.

Like, it was very obvious to me that, like, Zuckerberg is Smith. Like, they are the agents. And the delusion that they are anything but the agents trying to enforce, like, this program on the populace is, I thought that was, like, great. And I don't think that that could have possibly been on purpose but it was like because they had no idea what was coming but yeah it really resonates yeah uh i really thought that this works shockingly well as just a general allegory about the social media era um i mean it's it's a digital world where we are all locked into it for the

benefit of its creators the world feels real to us but it's a fabrication meant to keep us occupied while its creators control us harvest us for resources like tell me this is not a movie about the facebook algorithm yeah um like it just it was really shocking to me like how perfectly it fits like all you really need to change is that instead of extracting electricity they're like you're in the pod and they're getting your personal data to sell on like the weird open digital marketplace. Yeah. And they're hooking babies up. They're like, no, you're special. Instagram for babies or whatever. Yeah. All of those babies. The Matrix is saying like, oh, yeah, we did age verification. They're 12 or over. It's fine. Most unintentionally revealing for you, Jamal?

I think the movie as social media allegory actually worked. That's it for me. I don't think I have anything else. What do we think is the biggest real world impact? I feel like there's a lot here. Well, Aaron, you just mentioned this. So I will talk about it now because I've been thinking about this a lot. The degree to which this movie works is not just an allegory for social media, but is actually formative for Silicon Valley's view of itself. Sean Parker, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, this whole generation really thought this movie is about them like computer hackers which is what

they call themselves in silicon valley believe it or not it's like kung fu rebels who are going to break the chains of human bondage wield the the internet as a tool of anarchist revolution like the fact that it even starts with keanu reeves as a disillusioned software programmer at what is clearly supposed to be microsoft like that is how all the 2000s era Silicon people, Silicon Valley people got their start. And like, it feels silly to think of this as a movie is about like Mark Zuckerberg is Neo,

but like when it came out, like Silicon Valley had been saturated all of this. Like, do you guys know the declaration of independence of cyberspace? Have you encountered this document? I have no idea what that is. It sounds very stupid. It is very. Yeah. We don't use cyberspace have you encountered this document i i have no idea what that that is it sounds very stupid it's very yeah we don't use cyberspace anymore well just to like give you the context that the matrix hit silicon valley in 1999 a few years earlier there had been this

famous quote from this guy david clark who was one of the founders of the internet we reject kings presidents and voting we believe in run consensus and running code. There was this document in 1996 by a guy named John Perry Barlow called Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace that announces the internet as this new home of the mind where there are going to be no governments. It's going to be this anarchist utopia. We're going to free humanity from institutions and hierarchies. And like when Napster was created, they thought that that was the realization of this revolutionary ideal, like PayPal was going to break us from bondage to the banks. And Facebook was supposed to be like Neo destroying the matrix. Like that is literally what they thought it was going to be.

And like Mark Zuckerberg in the early days used to talk like he was Neo. Well, I mean, Facebook was originally just a way to like look at pictures of other people in your class and determine who's hot. Right. Like that's literally it. And yeah. But he like they really believed that they were like he used to say that we're a revolution company and we are fundamentally rewiring the world from the ground up because they

saw this movie. They thought this is about us and we need to engineer the ideals that like we have had in Silicon Valley that we believe we've seen actualized on the screen into our products. And that's how you get these social platforms that come out in the next few years after this, where it's supposed to be in theory. I know it's not, but like they believe that it's these like purely horizontal, ungoverned spaces. It's free from government intrusion. It's a reality of the world of the mind. Right. Disruption.

Disruption culture, which is actually, as we're seeing now, reinvent things that already exist, but worse and more expensive culture. Like, how do we profit from this? Like, do you remember when everyone was talking about 3D printers? I mean, we're still kind of, but it was like the thing that everyone was like, it was the, they were in the pump part. Yeah, the pump part of the pump and dump scheme that is every new tech that comes out. They were really pumping up 3D printers. And I remember one time at the time I was working for a publication that did a lot of coverage about tech. And they came, they were like, we've got this new 3D printer that can 3D print food.

Oh, like a plant? Like a plant or an animal? Like a cow? It actually sounds like the Matrix. They're growing food in pods for us. But it's like the disruption culture or the idea that something is good and should be fucked with

just because it can be fucked with comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of that there needs to be some discernment about why like these guys are fucking with something that is inherently exploitative sure and i think that silicon valley has evolved into a place that views anything that people cannot profit from as somehow exploitative if it's free it's exploiting people who could be profiting from it. Or like if it's something that already exists and, you know, we haven't monetized it or attached tech to it, it's somehow exploiting us. And it's just like a very perverted way of thinking about it. I think that another big real world impact that we're just now starting to get into. I mean, this isn't tech, but like the gender aspect of the discussion is huge.

And, you know, Charlie Jane Anders, who's a great sci-fi speculative fiction writer, blogger, et cetera, has written about how like, you know, it's good to have stories that are sort of allegories about trans people, but it's cool that we moved into stories that are actually directly about trans people. But I find I think that this movie is really revolutionary in the way that it has made a gender allegory. And nobody realized that they were watching it at the time. would have had no idea yeah and in fact i remember buying um maybe like in 2000 2001 like barnes

nobler or something a book that was like the matrix and philosophy and there's no discussion of really gender or anything in that book wow so funny lots of reference like the chapter on plato's allegory of the cave like lots of stuff about sort of like dualism and representation reality but sort of the notion that the matrix was an allegory about gender identity um i don't think was anywhere near common circulation if they reissue it they're gonna have to have judith butler write the intro well it's so funny especially when you know how much more overt the movie was as written and how much warner brothers made them take out, like, switch as a character who literally switches genders

between the Matrix and the real world. Right. I also think that, like, there is something to this movie's impact on the, like, red pill of it all that I'm not blaming on the Wachowskis, but the movie does articulate this kind of, like, I mean, to go back to, like, the philosophy of it all that I'm not blaming on the Wachowskis, but the movie does articulate this kind of like, I mean, to go back to like the philosophy of it, like a platonic ideal of the grand conspiracy,

that like you have a sense that there's something wrong with the world. You feel isolated and alone. And it turns out everything that you're feeling is because there is a secret force that controls everything and is suppressing you personally. And the solution is to join with like-minded outcasts and to rise up and to smash and overturn the status quo violently, if necessary, is like, it's such a perfect expression of the most basic ideal of that conspiracy that it kind of, I mean, it's not always false. Obviously, in some cases, it's true. But like most perfect articulation of that idea, the kind of anyone can use it can kind of take it off. And that includes, I think, a lot of people who use it to really good ends and talk about like revolution and liberation

of capitalism. And a lot of people will use it to really bad ends. Yeah, I think the reactionary reading of this movie was kind of inevitable, given how archetypal it is in the way it presents its world. Right. And how much that can appeal to people who have fundamentally antisocial attitudes

and see themselves as these kind of rebels. Although we kind of joked about it earlier, I do think that's sort of, there's an ideological reason for that Matrix sequel. I think it's entirely a recognition that the first movie does have this broad applicability to some very ugly stuff. Right.

And the sequel, and the two sequels, in fact, are very much pushing against the notion that you are some sort of like lone um hero that you have some sort of like secret knowledge like in in in the sequel the secret knowledge that everyone has turns out to be completely wrong right the idea right the idea that you know their inherited story is kind of a fabrication yeah it's a total fabrication, which I mean, that can I guess it also reinforced the initial thing. But I do think I do think that Wachowski, it's very like clearly recognized.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Very early on recognized sort of the uses with which the matrix could be deployed. Yeah, I do. Watching it now, I admit I did kind of wince when there's that Lawrence Fishburne line. You see it when you look out your window, when you turn on your TV, when you go to church, go to work, pay your taxes. Obviously, the Wachowskis did not mean this to be a like anti-state, anti-tax, like arch-libertarian movie. But you can see how if you wanted to project any kind of reactionary right-wing ideology onto it, it wouldn't be terribly hard to do, which obviously the Wachowskis became aware of and like have tried to push back against.

It gave people sort of an artistic representation. Exactly. Yeah. Like if you have the same problem over and over again in your life, the problem is you. If you're always smelling shit. The problem is feminists. Exactly. Yeah. And the problem is everything else. And that's like, you know, as a storytelling, as a storytelling like tool, it's called the crisis solution construct and like again that doesn't mean that like the wachowskis intended it to be all of the things that it became to a lot of people wanted to use it towards nefarious ends but i didn't think it was really interesting to see in retrospect now that we're so much more familiar with radicalization and how it works to see it portrayed kind of so plainly on the screen there is something genuinely fascinating to me how in 1999 we have a major american like a warner brothers studio picture in which the heroes the heroes i mean this i this is this is uh more built upon in the in the sequel but it's sort of talked about in the first one

the leader of the heroes is a religious fanatic right right right a religious fanatic who recruits like radicalizes and recruits a group of like-minded extremists who then shoot up an office building shoot up an office building yeah and like crash crash vehicles into into buildings yeah basically basically the agents are sort of like the archetypal men in black, which itself is sort of taken off of the G-man, the FBI man. So it's like I find it fascinating

that this movie exists and the late 90s were cultural context in which Americans could envision themselves as occupying that particular kind of role. I don't think a movie, I don't think the literal movie The Matrix could have been made like five years later.

Oh, absolutely not. We just hit the 25th anniversary of Columbine. And watching this movie with that you know in in mind um this movie makes guns look so cool cool as hell so cool like the coolest scene and like the bullet casings hitting the ground in slow motion and like literally no one actually using a gun like looks that cool well that's a good segue into how this would be different if it came out today like both specifically the like post columbine of it all which was i think a month after the movie came out like columbine was april i think uh i think they came out very close

to around yeah it was like a few they came out i think they can't they occurred around the same time right um like we're probably not mowing down quite as many like security guys and leather dusters if this comes out. But also the like I think the way that we would think about radicalization extreme is it would be less of an abstract because it feels like it's so real and so present now. Yeah. I think I think the biggest difference would be that the trans allegory would be just way more explicit. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Like Neo would be female when trans allegory would be just way more explicit totally yeah yeah like neo would be female when neo got untapped right um instead of having to have trinity in there as like the female trinity and neo look so alike in certain shots and the way that neo is that's true especially when neo is like occurred to me yeah like we're covering in the cot and morpheus comes and sits next to him my husband pointed out yesterday that like he's filmed like a woman is filmed.

Like just the angles and the lighting and the positioning was very like feminine. Right, right. And there's a kind of duality between the two of them. Exactly, exactly. I think it would just be probably an overtly trans movie. I think there would be fewer dial tones if it came out today um i'd love that the dial tones like becoming kind of digitized it sounded so cool it did sound very cool but i think now i was i was realizing the first time i watched this with

my kid in like you know 10 11 years i'm gonna have to be like, now, back in my day, we had to use the telephone to do internet. Even like the pre-smartphone, like the dumb cell phones looked so much cooler. I know. I do remember when those specific cell phones came out with the panel that flips open. It was so cool. Yeah. I still want one of those.

I do too. If they sold one of those, I would buy one in a heartbeat. If they reissued them. Oh, my gosh. Well, they're doing the light phones now. They need to do a Matrix specific branded light phone. I do think if this came out now, you were talking about this earlier. Like, I think it would just have to think very differently about its message of like this idea that the world is an elaborate fiction meant to

control us and like what it does to people coming out of that and the idea that in the original matrix the villain is cypher because he is just someone like who sells out to the powers that be i think now your cypher character the like turncoat enemy within would have to be someone who fell too far down the rabbit hole just because we're so much more aware of that now and it's so it's something that is like feels like a much closer cultural threat to us i think it would have to be someone who was like questioning reality to the point of madness or is like becomes too extreme and they're like what they want to do to like they want to destroy the entire matrix and everybody plugged into it I just feel like our attitudes towards this kind of like radicalization and being online and extremism have like really changed.

Yeah. The part where they were talking about everyone who is still hooked up needs to be considered an enemy. I think that's a Lawrence Fishburne line. I was really struck by that too. I was like, ooh. I know. Should they be?

Like that sounds like something that is very antisocial. Yeah, the idea that, right, civilians are legitimate targets as enemy combatants. Exactly. That would probably have to be a little bit different, given the stuff. Yeah. You had last year, I think it was the last last year the year before that the matrix resurrections came out and part of that film part of the story in that film was that there was some sort of like symbiotic relationship now like mutually beneficial beneficial in between machines

and humans at least some machines and mostly uh and and what's left of humanity and i do think that like what that movie didn't have that you would have expected is exactly someone who would have viewed that as unacceptable right sort of like someone who would have viewed any cooperation or work with the machines as being a betrayal right of humanity um and so i think i think right, Max, the sense that extremism itself being like one of the adversaries. Right, it's something that would be a subject of a lot more interrogation. Right.

I also think the clothes would be way less baggy. We'd definitely get the menswear guy in here and tighten up some of Lauren's Fishburne suits. Suits look great, but they were three sizes too big it was the 90s i know three buttons it was it was prussian in predicting the way that republicans would style themselves for the next 30 years none of their clothes men i did there's one point where uh keanu reeves came out i mean he had a great fitting suit. Thankfully, it actually fit him pretty well. But he had just the top of three buttons buttoned and was really high up. Did you guys catch this? It was a very weird look. I couldn't remember if that was a 90s thing or maybe he just was like forgetting to keep going down the buttons. I don't know. I didn't notice that. But it sounds feasible for sure.

All right. So we're ready to finish things off with true or false. Let's do it. So I'm going to read out a series of rapid fire quotes or plot points in the movie. You tell me whether you agree, whether you think that statement is true see it for yourself. I remember trying to explain this movie to people in 1999, and I would say it was rated true. I tried to explain this movie to my girlfriend over the weekend. She had never seen it, and it's very hard to explain. She'd never seen it? I know. My wife hadn't seen it until I made her watch it with me last year. It's a classic boyfriend-making-you-watch-it movie.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think a boy made me watch it the first time but it was 1999 a boy was like go to the theater and see this movie and i was like dutifully yes boy um i think i think true but only it's it's like one of those movies like parasite where the less you know about what you're about to watch the more enjoyable the cinematic experience yes so it's more of a like preference thing. Like you can explain the Matrix to somebody. It's a cyberpunk action film from the late 90s that explores, you know, what if we lived in a simulation

and some people got out and tried to just destroy the simulation. But like, it's better to not know that. Like, it's just, it's better to not know. It is easier to explain post that very specific moment in early 2017 when we all toyed with the idea of believing that we live in a simulation. I still think that. I still think we live in a simulation. I do. I think that we live in a simulation and we are all autonomous and able to make decisions within that simulation.

But we have been abandoned by the programmer and the simulation is kind of like glitchy. Oh, interesting. And breaking down. So it's kind of we live in the Matrix, but it's a the AI has wandered off and left us here. Yeah, exactly. Someone was playing The Sims and then went to go have lunch. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Left the computer running. The RAM is getting overflowed. Exactly. That's exactly. I still think. So would you do would you break out of the pod if that's the case? The RAM is getting overflowed. Exactly. That's exactly. I still think. So would you do would you break out of the pod if that's the case? Not if I have to eat goop all the time.

Yeah, the goop did. I'm not sure. I wouldn't do what Cypher did. That was wrong. But I'm not sure knowing what I know. Kill people? I would break it. Yeah.

Then you have to kill a bunch of security guards. That's not cool. I don't want to do that. Yeah. They seemed fine. They didn't have that coming. All right. True or false.

You had a computer program that could teach you anything. The first thing you would learn would be jujitsu. False. False? What would it be? The first thing I would learn? I would learn a bunch of languages. That's like the only thing.

That was my answer. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, Neo, I know you have to learn jujitsu to go save the world, whatever, but you're doing 10 hours. You don't have one break to learn Mandarin. What know you have to learn jujitsu to go save the world, whatever, but you're doing 10 hours. You don't have one break to learn Mandarin. What if you want to go on vacation? At least sneak in a five minute program to learn how to poach an egg. If you are concerned about digital surveillance, the last place you would want to go on vacation is a place you need Mandarin.

That's true. Well, if it's all the matrix, it doesn't make any difference anyway. That's true. There is a panopticon. I would, yeah, no, I wouldn't learn jujitsu. No, I think the language is the language's thing for sure. Or I would download books that like I should have read but didn't. Oh, yeah.

And just be like, okay, now I've read Great Expectations. It's definitely, that would be a great way to do like a master class program. So just download the program. Right. Because like what if you want to read Ulysses, but not actually. Now I've read Moby Dick. And while we're out in the Matrix, let me recite fake whale facts to you. Yes. They should have one of the characters who is just like jamming the great books in the training program and constantly quoting them and annoying everybody. Yes. Somebody who is is neurodivergent, but very hyper fixated on literature. We definitely needed more people like Mouse who had some weird hobby that they were enacting

via this training program. Such a great opportunity. Yes. All right. True or false? The people all around you, businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters are the people we are trying to save. But they are still a part of the system and that makes them our enemy. I'm going to say false. I'm not ready to embrace quite that level of Maoist revolutionary thought. God. Yeah, I had to nope out of the three body problem in the first scene.

So I don't think I don't think I've got the stomach. Yeah, that's false. Jamil. Yeah, false. False, yes. No true revolutionaries at this table. All right, so they talk about this idea when the characters go into the Matrix,

their appearance mirrors how they see themselves deep down. True or false, you went into the Matrix, your projection of yourself would look exactly the same except in head-to-toe leather. False. I mean, we've already discussed this uh my projection of myself would be decked out in tweed i look like harrison ford at this in the seconds in the second act of uh of raiders of the lost ark oh yes that'd be that's a great one yeah i can't believe that nobody's image of themselves was like, just like how would i prefer to look versus how do i think about myself yeah and uh i'm just gonna say as a writer who's dabbled in comedy i don't

think very highly of myself at all so i think that actually in the matrix i would be like honestly i um i'm 40 and i just started getting like gray hair which i'm not gonna die because feminism good for you but like there's a there's still like it like kind of gnaws at your vanity and so just even noticing like a few like little gray hairs if i went into the matrix i would be like an old hag like um like the old lady from like drive your plow over the bones of the dead i don't know if you read that book. It's very good. It's about an old hag who's also. It's about Aaron.

It's about me. I would be like a Baba Yaga witchy, like hair going all over the place. I'm old. Very grouchy. I guess you would pop into the Matrix and everybody would immediately know how you were feeling because it would be like, oh, Aaron looks like hell today. Aaron's having a down day. pregnant right now. And yesterday I put on a shirt that's a normal shirt and I just fully look like Winnie the Pooh. And so Winnie the Pooh would appear in The Matrix. Humpty Dumpty, any other round fictional characters, that's probably how I would appear. But I would like to look like Katherine Hepburn. Well, I think that you would do a lot of, maybe what you would do in

the training program is a lot of therapy. So then you would feel really good about yourself and go into the Matrix and look great. Yeah. Morpheus just sitting there asking me about my mother. True or false. If the Internet were a color, it would be lime green. That sounds right. Sure. True. I think it's true in 1999 for sure. We're kind of post MS-DOS era. I feel like now it's a little bit more of a corporate-y blue color, maybe like a light blue. Yeah. True or false?

Did anyone have the, whatchamacallit, screensaver for their computer? No. Did you? Unfortunately, I did. I 100% did. Yeah, I did. It looked so cool. It did look cool, but I didn't have it.

That was part of the, like, you could just render the internet as random green letters that were falling and everybody was like, yeah, that's how the internet works. Yeah. That's what that is. Sure. Series of letters, not a series of tubes. True or false, if an evil AI ever took over the world, its secret headquarters would be at the Colonial State Bank Tower in Sydney, Australia. If an evil AI took over the world. No, I don't think it would be in Australia.

Yeah. In one of the later ones, I was Googling this to try to figure out the answer. And the Google AI is fucked up. And it told me that it was the Salesforce building in San Francisco. And I actually think that would be a great place for the evil AI headquarters. Yeah, I agree. All right. So we're going to do a few from the Hugo Weaving, Agent Smith monologue, because he has a lot to say there that we needed true or false.

Let's play a clip from that. Perfect world in a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this. The peak of your civilization. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about evolution morpheus evolution all right guys we've been dancing around this all episode true or false if the machines were going to design the matrix to trap us in the peak of human civilization it would be 1999 bill clinton says true bill clinton says this is hard true

i don't know um that that feels absolutely true like maybe yeah me because like i would you want to say 2009 but oh we're in the midst of a horrible recession yeah i i feel like 90 i feel like that's probably she at 99 yeah it's kind of peak unipolar moment. End of history. I brought up Prince before, but he was like, right. He was right. 1999 was like 2000 party over with out of time. And he was 100% right.

1999 was like the end of good times. But I will say a second tier nomination would be 2013. Okay. Brooklyn. Okay. Tail end of like indie sleaze. The music was really good. You could still like live there for fairly.

There was like still, we still had like a culture that was like generating stuff. Bands still played instruments. I sound so old um i would say 2013 because it was also like the second obama administration we hadn't like we'd we'd recovered sort of from the great recession um like everything was going to keep getting better yeah we all had smartphones right um but we weren't all like it wasn't like empires were top like the American empire wasn't in the process of toppling in a way that everyone was aware of. Is there a Matrix-y sound you can make? Not legally. True or false, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. I'm going to say true. I'll say true as well.

Okay. I agree, true. I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of art to back that one up. True or false, if artificial intelligence became self-aware, it would be disgusted by humanity's treatment of the environment. It's environmentalist evil AI in this movie. False. I don't think it would care. Yeah, I agree. False. I don't think that they're upset about the coral reefs. No.

Yeah, I don't think AI would care. What would AI be disgusted by i mean smith is right probably the way we smell that was going to be the last one true or false they would be disgusted by how we smell i think that's true i think they would hate it a lot of people smell pretty bad um all right last one true or false there is no spoon i'm gonna say this movie made it true. True. Became true. There's no spoon anymore. Sure.

True. Yeah. Okay. Great. Great. Well, now that we've done away with spoons, this was great. Thank you guys so much for joining me. Thank you.

This was fun. Thank you for having me. Offline is a Crooked Media production. Our movie club episodes are written and hosted by me, Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher. Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Charlotte Landis. Audio support from Jordan Cantor and Kyle Seglin.

Kenny Siegel and Jordan Katz wrote our show's original theme music, and the remixed movie-specific bangers you hear at the top of each movie club are composed by Vassilis Vatopoulos. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Reid Cherlin for production support.