Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 272: The Matrix

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Kat Bailey, and Shane Bettenhausen revisit the themes, legacy, making of, and (of course) video games based on the Wachowski siblings' mind-bending 1999 sci-fi classic: The Matrix.

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, we split the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Hi, everyone, welcome to Retronauts, and you are jacking in right now to an episode about The Matrix. This episode may or may not really exist, but if you perceive it exists, then yet exists. Anyway, I am your virtual host, Jeremy Parrish. And with me in this very real meat space podcast that is even more post-apocalyptic than the Matrix's universe, we have.

Did you choose the word meat space? Meat space. I've never heard that in my life. Really? What does that mean? What does that mean? What do you think it means? There's virtual space and meat space.

And we refer to. You are made of meat, sir. That's what we refer to in the real light world in like early 2000s. I thought maybe it was M-E-E-T, like, like, Frenster oracle. It's where the snails. It's where the snails should deliver your mail live. in meat space. Sneaker net happens in meat space.

Okay, this is Shane Burley Man, Bettenhausen. Actually, the Burley Man. The Burley Man? The Burley. All right. This is Bob Mackie. I took the orange pill for daytime cold relief without drowsiness. I thought I was even older than I am. We're thinking of Johnny Mnemonic.

Yeah. So this is not a specific anniversary. I guess we missed the 20th anniversary. We did miss the 20th anniversary. We were so busy, excited, like, reveling in the 20th anniversary of episode one of Star Wars that... Hey, hey. Don't get me started on Senator Jar Jar Jha Banks, okay? You were proclaiming your deep, carnal love for Jardin.

The other reason to revisit the Wischowski's The Matrix is not only is this the 20th anniversary year when we're recording this still, but they did. just recently announced a fourth film coming. So all the more reason to revisit this pivotal moment in pop culture. And the Matrix has been very pivotal. Some ways very good. Some way is kind of bad. Like the whole red pill thing. Let's not talk about that.

I mean, that whole, but like you can't blame it for that. But I think. No, no, no. But people adopted its lingo. Right. But I think now 20 years later, we can really look back and see just how deep and powerful the repercussions of this film were. Mm-hmm. Yes.

So we are going to talk about the film. That's right. We are also going to talk about the games and about the legacy. I was going to make notes on this episode to kind of outline the conversation, but then I was re-watching the Matrix, and I got so into it that I forgot to take notes. So we're just going to wing it. I also imagine you and I are kind of similar age, and these two are a little younger. So we probably all have really good memories of how we first experienced this and what it meant to us back in the day, too. I mean you were like probably in college-ish, or we were in high school. High school, yeah.

I was in college. Recently out of college. Actually, I just finished college, too. You're right. It was the year after I finished college. Yeah. And so I had a full-time job and not a lot of friends, and I kept hearing how cool this movie was. Pause.

Had you watched Bound before this? No. Or had you seen... I knew nothing about the... Had you seen Assassins? No. Okay. I was not really super into esoteric film.

Like, art house film. I was very much into, like, the anime thing at that point. Well, I was in the past five years. years or so. I was into the anime, but I was really going into it. Also into the art house. So I had seen both assassins. I didn't realize they wrote assassins when I saw it, which is not an art house film. It's an Antonio Bandera's action

movie. It's really good. I recommend it if you haven't seen assassins. But anyway, that's written by the Wichowski's. And then based on the success of that, they got bound, which is this kind of like fun, playful, dark, sexy thriller drama that's

highly, highly recommended. They got tons of critical buzz. And I remember I rented it. on home video based on the buzz and I thought it was fantastic and then based on that they got the deal to make this film called The Matrix with a huge budget produced by Joel Silver with Keanu Reeves

and I remember seeing a thing on TV on either like entertainment tonight or 60 minutes long before the Matrix came out while they were filming The Matrix and about how different this thing was how all the actors were having to do their own stunts and learn Kung Fu and I remember the script was written on

black paper with red ink and shit. That sounds difficult. And how they were making storyboards of the whole movie. So I remember being excited like six months before this movie came out like,

oh my God, I can't wait to go see this movie on opening day. I remember seeing like previews or trailers or something for the movie and thinking that looks really stupid. I'm not going to watch that.

But then the buzz around the movie once it came out was really, really positive. And so I thought, all right. Do anybody else see it on opening day? No. I saw it on a month later.

Oh, so I saw it on opening day in a full theater at like a midnight screening. And people were fucking super into it and like applauded the end and cheered. And it was a huge deal. I thought it was not popular until word of mouth. Is that the story behind it? That's certainly the impression I got.

Like it was definitely, I don't know, where I lived, certainly. It was kind of a, you know, like a word of mouth thing. So I don't think we can talk about the Matrix without referencing the fact that Star Wars, the Phantom Menace came out almost at the same time. It was less than two months later. Yeah. And so I think everybody was full blown into. Phantom Menace hype mode at this point.

Which is also hard to imagine by Modern Standards, because that was a huge deal. So, like, just, like, for reference, the Austin Powers sequel. Gold member. Yeah. No, Austin Powers 2. Scott Spy Who Shaggart. Totally references the fact that Phantom Menace is coming out and be like, yeah. The trailer is like, if you only see one movie this summer, see Star Wars.

Whatever. If you see two movies, see Gold. Well, it is true. Like, Matrix wasn't expected to be a runaway hit, whereas Star Wars, obviously was. So the first time I heard of the Matrix. was through TV commercials and I saw the bullet time stuff where they're jumping up

and doing the wire foo and I thought to myself well that looks really cheesy and I completely wrote it off did not even think about it until like months later when all of my friends were talking about how amazing the Matrix

was and how everybody had to see it and I was like what so when I was in high school I reviewed movies actually for our local newspaper for our high school newspaper with a friend of mine and so we watched the Matrix together

that was my first time watching it and then I reviewed it. Quick question, is it rated R? No, it's PG-13. Okay, because after a second maybe it was R for some weird reason that was like a limiting factor for it? No, it was PG-13.

No, it just wasn't, I don't know, like it did not have that much buzz around it before it launched because everyone to put it in context, Star Wars hype, like the hype machine for that had been built slowly and steadily and with great for

over the course of more than five years. Right. Like, Lucas had a roadmap to episode one that involved, you know, like, shadows of the empire, like the supplemental content. And the re-release of the special editions. The re-release of the special editions. Have you guys ever done a Phantom Menace? No, we haven't gotten there yet.

Well, we'll get you on that one. For example, my friends and I camped out for four nights for the Phantom Madness. Oh, man, you were one of those people. We were one of those people, right? No one did it for the Matrix. It was just, hey, this cool thing we went in to go see. There was a huge goal between the excitement, anticipation for the Phantom Ediths, and this come from nowhere, never heard of it before movie.

Matrix was like, oh, it's Ted Theodore Logan, like learning kung fu? That's silly. But the movie came out of kind of nowhere for most people and was way more successful in their minds. And this was when things could come out of nowhere. But it wasn't like it only found success on home video. It actually hit. It did very well. It only had a 60 million budget, made like $200 million.

and it played for a very long time. So you probably all saw in the theater months after it had come out. I did not see it. It's not like a month after it came out. I was lucky enough to see it just a few weeks after it came out because I was as online as I am now, which is very online. But I did not even hear anyone talking about it. And my step that at the time was a non-traditional college student. He was like getting a degree in his 40s. And he was in a writing class and he had to write a movie review.

So he's like, I got to see a movie today. The Matrix looks cool. Do you want to see it with me? So I went. That's cool. It was. Yeah, it was a cool stepdad. And he still is. And I went to see the movie with a friend of mine and my stepdad. And we, like, didn't hear anything about it before the movie. And then that's all we could talk about after the movie was over. And in fact, the movie was so good that after that screening, a woman was pulled out of that theater on like a gurney. Somebody was hospitalized because the Matrix blew their mind so much. I mean, this was back in the era where people would go to movies and be like, I don't understand what I just saw. I don't think that happens so much anymore. But, I remember that happening with Mission Impossible in 1996. People were like, what was that, what was the plot there?

They had to go back and see it again. And Matrix was the same way where people were like, you know, I was paying so much attention to the cool special effects that I really don't know what just happened. So they would go back and see it again. There's a TV commercial for The Exorcist that is literally just about like you're going to lose your shit when you go see this movie in the theater. And just like people freaking the fuck out watching The Exorcist. No one will be admitted after the second act. It's amazing. And then, oh, sorry.

If it had come out in 2019, there would have been Matrix. social media buzz, and then you would have seen think pieces everywhere, and then everybody would have been able to read up on it. But I'll say, like, someone who was excited before it came out. Like, the first poster for this is just this scrolling, backwards green, katakana. Like, they were

teasing this. There was excitement among like cool sci-fi nerds. We knew this was going to be... Shane setting himself up as a cool one. No, for real. Like, we knew this is going to be the shit. And it, like, over... It over-delivered. Like, I can't think of too many films other than this where we

walked out like just aghast by how fucking cool. It was everything I wanted it more. Yeah. Like a major motion picture about cyberpunk about the internet that wasn't dumb. Like have you seen Sandra Bullock in the net? I have. I've seen her using a laptop on the beach with no...

Pizza.net with Dennis Miller. Yeah. Or Job 316. Like this was made... Right. This was like for us, by us like in a way that like most major sci-fi movies had not that. Yeah. The thing that makes this movie successful, I think. is that the Wachowski's are nerds

and not just for like anime and stuff like that, but for movies. Yeah. Like they're really, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that this movie came out pretty soon after Metal Gear Solid because I feel like they are cut in a lot of ways

from the same cloth as Hideo Kojima. It's funny you bring that up because I think MGS2 is kind of reaction to this in part in many ways. But I mean, you know, Metal Gear Solid integrates so many like movie nerd elements into it and the Wachowski's are the same way. but they also were like, okay, so Kojima is like super influenced by Western movies,

you know, American Hollywood films. This was a movie influenced very heavily by anime and by Chinese Wusha. And it was really, I think, I would argue it's the first American produced and made movie that really managed to take those disparate foreign influences, those specific influences, and turn them into something meaningful that's not just like an imitation or satire or, like really ham-fisted, but to like kind of understand what is it that makes these things cool?

Like, what is it about wirefoo that works and enhance it in new ways? They used digital techniques, but they didn't go full CG animation like Star Wars did. They used computer animation, computer blending, and enhancements in smart ways, you know, for color grading and for combining the bullet time effects using actual cameras. It's not just like 3D models of people being rendered in there. They actually, like, when you see the bullet time of Trinity jumping in the air and doing a slow motion kick, they actually have, like, I don't know, like a hundred cameras that, you know, like still cameras firing off in sequence. It's not CG.

Yeah. Well, then they use computer graphics, CG technology to blend that and to make it, you know, really convincing. It's funny that that technology was used to make the Matrix and Gap commercials in 1999. But, yeah, that, I mean, everyone wanted to do bullet time as soon as they saw that movie. but I think what really makes this movie effective in the same way that Mad Max Fury Road is effective is that it's restrained in its use of computer effects and knows that sometimes practical is the way to go

and there's this understanding of like to make our craft better we have to know when to use these resources and they hit it just right and there are definitely parts of this movie that going back to watch it again I was like whoa those full CG parts of the fields of batteries and, like, robots and stuff, that looks pretty bad now. But everything else, like the actual live character effects,

it still works really well. It looks so much more convincing than a lot of modern. Yeah, well, and Phantom Menace was billed as the greatest special effects extravagans of its time, right? And I would say that Matrix holds up way the heck better than Phantom Menace. I don't think that's like a controversial thing to say. and I think a lot of that is what you had to say and also it wasn't as cartoony as Phantom Menace that certainly helped

I watch it now honestly the last time I watched The Matrix wasn't a plane actually which isn't the greatest place to watch it But it's small screen But it I was like wow man this like this movie has an energy to it It has a style to it It still works for me

It's funny Jeremy you bring up the CG stuff because I was recently thinking about this how, like, now, you know, 20 years after this, we're, you know, like, we're so used to computer graphic imagery, computer-generated imagery. But, like, you know, 20 years ago, it was still new for it not to stick out, for it not to be Lawmore Man, for it not to be, like, garrish, hideous, obviously not real. And by the time of Phantom Medicine, The Matrix, you could kind of, like, interpolate it in a way where, like, it actually, like, meshed with what you were looking at and was cohesive. And I feel, like, revisiting this film, like, for me, the CG mostly did work. It didn't look amateurish and shitty. Not until Matrix Reloaded, did it start to look amateurish? Yeah, we'll get to the Burley Raw, how bad it looks.

But, like, I think more importantly, what Jeremy was getting to with, like, how this film narratively synthesizes Star Wars, anime, like, you know, kind of like these different, like a lot of different. So much. Yeah. And like, yeah, like Kung Fu Cinema, you're right. Like traditional Hong Kong Kong cinema, like in a way to make something new that then has been copied so much since this. Like that specific combination that this thing master. mastered worked and like be kind of like was like you know inspired a whole new part of pop culture that now 20 years ago is is not now commonplace like the matrix bullet time it's like

you know all these things that were new and fresh when you saw them in 1999 are now just completely wrote okay so one thing that I think we have to address is the fact that they cast Keanu Reeves as the protagonist of this cyberpunk thriller Keanu Reeves had already been in Johnny Monique so I I think that might have been kind of a little bit of a, I don't know about this. Like, I actually, my first perception of this was like, is this like a sequel to Johnny DeMonic? Well, that film was considered kind of like not great by a lot of people. It was like too hetty.

Like, I mean, as successful as Johnny Motic was, like I feel like it didn't quite deliver what everyone wanted it to. And it wasn't a giant success. I believe Will Smith turned this roll down. He did. And he has since gone on the record and said, you know what? I would have messed up this movie. I'm so glad it went to Keanu Reeves because he did a. it justice and I wouldn't have gotten it.

You need his doofy coolness. And both Keanu and Lawrence Fisprin were big names, cool actors who were draws. I think Keanu Reeves' star was a little bit on the wane, you know, like the post-speed era. Right. And he was starting to move into more like kind of smaller roles or, you know, romantic comedies. Like, what was it? Something's got to give, that kind of thing. And that came later, but he was kind of moving in that direction. But whenever he tried to do something that wasn't in his wheelhouse, it wasn't so good. Yeah, like Dracula. My own private Idaho. No, he's actually good.

my own private Idaho, but what's the one where he, like, inherits a vineyard? Oh, it's real bad. Anyway. If Will Smith had been cast as Neo, he would have totally taken over that film, being Will Smith. Yeah. His reactions would have been really over the top versus Keanu Reeves' much more subdued, kind of. He's kind of sleepwalks through it, but at the same time, he's the audience insert right, into the film. So you're looking at this world through his eyes.

So the fact that he's kind of in the background. is sort of okay because you're in this one. Although I'll say the game, the film opens with Trinity with Carrie Ann Moss, who was relatively unknown. She was like a very well-known actress. Yeah, she'd done some supporting roles. But like she, this, you know, I remember thinking she in some ways stole the film for me when I first saw it.

Yeah, and Lawrence Fishburne had been in, was it, do the right thing? Well, also like, you know, Apocalypse Now. Larry, I didn't realize he was in that. Oh, he's 15. He's like a child. He's credited as Larry Fishburn. Peeley's Playhouse. Come on.

Give it up. Yeah, he'd actually done a lot of work, but not anything like this. Well, one thing we haven't mentioned and is that I've read about the marketing campaign, even though, like, I only saw the ads. They really set it up to be like, what is the Matrix? That was the tagline. What is the Matrix? They set up the mystery of what the Matrix is from the beginning of the marketing campaign,

and that was what was supposed to draw you in. Well, and the movie plays on that because it takes like half an hour for you to actually find out what the Matrix is and Keanu, sorry, Neo has to really commit to it. Thomas Anderson has to really commit to it. And like, okay, can we talk about the symbolism in the names Thomas Anderson, doubting Thomas, also son of man? So, like, they were really playing it up, not being very subtle here. I think it's also important for our younger listeners to think about in 1999, the average

American person was not really on the internet much. Like, we were all young. We had already dissected Evangelion, so we were. Cool and we knew. Like, you know, we were, like, people, I think everyone here had been online used that or, you know, IRC, yeah. Like, we were, you know, we were of that generation. I was extremely online by 99 standards.

A lot of people I knew didn't even have computers in 1999. Most people didn't have cell phones. Most people didn't have email addresses. Like, the internet was still new. So, like, this film was, you know, was president in many ways. I think 1994 was considered, like, the great wave in which when AOL, I think, went public. And then after that, it built up steadily. but still, 1999, we're still on barely 56K modems.

Yeah. Yeah, so much has changed. The internet was still cool back in 1999. 1999 was the launch of the first games console that had a modem built in. Right. The idea of a hacker was still kind of this mysterious concept for the average consumer. Like, what is that? What did they do?

Yeah. I mean, we had seen the movie hackers, but that was not accurate. Hack the planet. So The Matrix, What is the Matrix? What is the Matrix? Let's talk about the movie itself. the premise. Well, it turns humans into electric potatoes. Yes, basically. So imagine the machines become self-aware, kind of Terminator's kind of.

You have to get over the ridiculousness of the core premise of the matrix, which is that somehow it is like thermodynamically efficient to use human beings, extremely complex apex predator, top of the food chain objects, like living beings, as batteries to power a giant computer. It should be cows. That's very simple. The idea that the machines have become self-aware and they are harvesting their energy from the humans that created them. Well, I think that they had a somewhat more complex idea around why the humans are being made, like for something like the brain was being used as processing power. Yeah, yeah. Basically, like we were all being used as like multi-core processors.

Our brains were a core each in this massive computing complex. It's like the cell processor. Yeah, but the studio execs, I guess, I guess, we're like, nobody understands what the heck you're talking about. Make them batteries. Well, and so while people are being sucked of their life juice, then they're in their minds, they're living out their mundane normal lives, aka our existence, our plane of reality. So the peak of human society, 1999. 1999, which actually, yes. I have things to say about that.

So I'm doing a lot of podcasts for my other podcasts, Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon and Talking Futurama and things like that. We're doing a lot of things in 1999 for some reason around this time. And we keep mentioning the end of history period of America where it was like we were living in a cozy neoliberal bubble where it was understood that nothing bad would happen to us. And like the torture we passed from Clinton to Gore and then whatever other Democrats into the, you know, impossible future. And I think at this point, like we had to create our own problems because they just weren't a factor in our lives. And this is like a huge movie because of that. Just like, what if bad things were happening? And we had no control over our lives.

Well, now it's just like it's understood that we don't and bad things always happen. And we're all always online. There's no escape. Yep. But yeah, the Matrix is a computer simulation in which the humans of this world have been trapped by sentient machines that conquered humanity. It's like, like Shane said, kind of like the Terminator, except that instead of being skeletal Arnold Schwarzenegger's, they're basically like giant squid bots, and they treat us

as batteries. They're kind of like the quintessons. Yeah, yeah, a little bit, except they don't have the five faces and past judgment on everyone. I got to say that I like the entire sequence where he's explaining it, where they're sitting in the white room, watching an old style TV. And it doesn't look dated. It looks kind of retro, like intentionally retro. Well, I mean, even then that television was very retro. Yes. But I do like when you get into the real world and you've got like Sony PVM monitors all over the place. It's like, wow, that's some nice gear. I'd love to get my hands on

that stuff now. It's funny you brought up hackers because I say unlike hackers, like the presentation of the, you know, what is the Matrix, the real world that our hacker friend lives in and the party's going to do. It all does seem kind of cool, still holds up. It does, like, at the time, it didn't seem cheesy at all. Now we know what hackers look like

and what their lives are like. It's, I mean, they get the fact that Neo is extremely pale right, but that's about it. And also our real world, they do a lot with lighting. So the real world is kind of has this green tinge to it.

It's color, color. Filtertered, yeah. Well, I mean, the Matrix. world. The real world is kind of bluecast and the matrix world is green. So everything is bluecast now. But at the time, yeah, so.

It had a very distinct visual look. And again, I mentioned Metal Gear Solid earlier. And Metal Gear Solid was the first game I can think of that had color grading also. And, you know, reduce color palette to make better performance. Yeah. Well, not just better performance, but to create a consistent look and style.

And like that became much more pervasive after the matrix, but you really didn't see it that often. And, you know, it was computer processing technique. So it was kind of a new, again, a use of CG that wasn't like, here is a, you know, like a clownish reptile man. It's like here is a way to kind of create a subtle visual distinction between two alternate spaces. The opening bits are really good.

Just like, I really like how they're slowly setting it up. So many movies now are really in a hurry to get to the point. This one is much more of a slow burn. There's a, the whole bit where he's in the office and the agent's come looking for him and he's trying to hide and everything and I think Trinity is kind of directing him. He gets caught and

there's that horrific thing with the thing that goes inside his belly button. And he has no mouth, but he must scream. The bug. Kind of some Kernenberg style body horror there which I like. Well, and I like, you're right, it takes a long time before the viewer and Neo are both kind of introduced to the great secret show that's really happening. And then like when you do find out what's

really happening, you're kind of, you know, in media res, like there's this crew, there's all these things There's all these characters. There's so much going on. There's this whole universe that you feel like has really been occurring. It's kind of got a like a Wizard of Oz element to it where it seems like one world is real, but then you experience like another world and everything's different. Right.

Except that instead of going to a cool fantasy world, Neo is actually taken out of the cool fantasy world and shown the gross, horrible, depressing real world where everyone just eats porridge and they wear very clearly smelly clothing with holes in them and they're living in like basically sewer tunnels and space you hear about like the one city Zion where the humans live

and but yeah like as if like it's like oh this was a fantasy and the reality is bleak and horrible and it's been going on for a long time what's the name of one of the key villains cypher cypher like you can understand you can kind of why he wants to go back

you can understand why he would betray them oh yeah I want illusion world yeah you would uphor his motives and betraying everybody but at the same time you understand give me a simulation of happiness I think somebody said he when he goes I want to come back maybe as an actor I don't want to remember

anything people are saying people are suggesting that he was alluding to the fact that he wants to be Ronald Reagan well it's funny I don't I don't think there's been a retronauts on AI they probably never will be so I'm going to similar film came about a Philberg's movie few years later but again like the idea of like oh a simulation

of happiness is better than the bleak reality is how that film ends you know yeah Well, I mean, that's one of the core themes of the film is, do you want to be in the real world and deal with all the crap? Or do you want to just fall into the illusion? Right. Like one of the first things they say is, look at all these people. They're sheep. They don't want to wake up.

If you woke them up, you'd break their brain. Yeah, and actually, I don't know how much we're going to talk about the Matrix Online, but, you know, there were factions within the Matrix Online, the MMO, based on the series, which is a continuation of the, the, the, you know, the. movie story, and there's an entire faction of blue pillars who just want to, you know, having had the Matrix disrupted and being brought into the real world unexpectedly, all they want is just to go back into the machine. So they're like on the machine's side so they can be reinserted into the Matrix. It's a bleak outlook. Yep.

But, you know, on the other hand, like, can you kind of blame them? I'm in the Blue Man Group. So when I was in high school, I was in a very conservative neighborhood, and I knew a lot of born-again Christians and Baptists, and they really played up the religious aspect of the Matrix. Weird. Well, yeah, they basically said, Neos Jesus. I mean, sure.

There's Zion the city, Morpheus, the God. I mean, well, by the end of the third film, he's literally crucified. What did they have to say about Trinity? What does that mean? Is she God and the sun and the Holy Spirit all at once? It's kind of a mystery. I don't know. What do they think about the Matrix as a metaphor for coming out as transgender?

Hmm, interesting. Do your Christian friends have anything to say about that? People didn't really think about, I guess, transgender in 1999, certainly not in... Not a lot of awareness for it. Jeremy, you didn't randomly bring that up. I mean, both of the Wachowski's... Of course. Both of the Wukowskis are transgender, yes.

And, you know, I read... And in fact, they were going to have a character who was trans. Right. And different... Who identified as different gender... Well, I mean, you have a very androgynous character named Switch. Yes. Well, and it was on the Wikipedia page, but there was a good quote from Lana.

about like, oh, revisiting the first matrix with that, from that perspective. And, like, the part about, like, the knowledge that Neo has, like, the splinter of the minds I have, always knowing that something was wrong. Always knowing, like, that he felt wrong about reality. Yeah, dysmorphia, basically. Yeah, I felt like that was kind of, you know, maybe early. Dysphoria. Yeah, like, probably dysmorphia. This movie caused the whole cottage industry to spring into being where it was like a thousand books called like The Matrix and Philosophy, the Matrix and Religion.

And everyone had like the cool college professor where you're, you would watch the Matrix and write a paper about it because I think it is sort of like a Roershack test because it applies like the broadest themes of storytelling and uses like all of this very powerful symbolism. So you can kind of see what you want to see in it. You know, it's deeply about identity and reality and, yeah, perception. You know, I think I think the fact that the Matrix has a lot to say and deep things to kind of topics to jump into was a cool thing because that wasn't something you expected from popcorn, you know, blockbuster AAA cinema. Yeah, I mean, before we encounter drugs for the first time, my teenage friends and I would be like, what do you even? is reality. Like, are we even doing this right now? Are we like, yeah,

it just caused all of those very high conversations to happen. But there are a lot of things about the Matrix that at the same time, if you watch it now, you kind of go, woo, like the entire scene with the when they go through the metal detector. Yeah, that was cool for about a month and then all of a sudden it was very not cool. It was very cool in 19.

It was very cool when the movie came out and then Columbine happened. Yeah, it was the movie came out in March, 1999. Yes. Columbine happened like four weeks later and all of a sudden everyone was like hmm let's um

French coat mafia take a step back and Columbine was not influenced by the Matrix that was something that had been those guys had planned that for a long time weren't they more influenced by natural born killers

I believe so yeah and you know they they made practice levels in doom and that sort of thing that said Matrix is kind of gun porny more like that's one of things going back to it's like yeah it's a bit much

yeah like yeah there there's the kind of the question of like so if If you die in The Matrix, then you die in real life. So are these, like, human police that they're killing, or are they constructs? Because I'm pretty sure that they're meant to be, like, people. No, they're totally killing people.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like a lot of the gunplay is an homage to John Wu and the killer and hard-boiled. It is. And he was very much kind of in the Hollywood Zykeast at the time. This game out around the same time as Mission Impossible 2. Which is so bad. It is a, it is the word.

I love that series, but that is garbage. When Tom Cruise walks out of the church in slow motion with the fucking doves. I mean, the original idea behind the Mission Impossible movie series was that it would be a tour and each entry would be directed by a different director and they would put their fingerprint on it. And I really feel like that died after Mission Impossible too. They were like, actually, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Let's just kind of make some good action movies. Anyway, yeah, the gun porn element is a little hard to watch now and not because of Columbine,

And just because of, like, this whole culture has kind of really calcified in America at this point. And it's also kind of the least interesting aspect and one that's really downplayed in the two sequels, too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the parts where, you know, Neo is dodging bullets like at superhuman speeds, that's interesting. When he's able to stop a hill of bullets just by looking at them and putting his hand out, that's interesting. But when they're just like gunning down random dudes. Yeah, that five-minute shootout is a little long. Most interesting.

Especially with the... The soundtrack doesn't quite hold up. The most interesting bits are when he's being chased by the agents, and he knows that he can't beat them. So he's just trying to get away, and the agents are just everywhere. They're constantly popping up. Let's talk about agents, but he's a cool character. Just the agents, yes.

Hugo Weaving is one of the... He makes it. He's great. He is right up there with Lawrence Fishburn, and I guess Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann Moss is like... He's one of the great villains in cinema history. I mean, we're talking about people, if you say Mr. Anderson, people will know who you're talking about. I mean, he did make his career.

He does chew up the scenery a little bit, but it works. No, but it works. This is the movie that demands it. Yeah. I love how they take the idea of, like, you know, the men in black, like government agents and just kind of push them to the point that, like, there's subtle ways to know, like, these guys aren't normal. They're not human. They've always got the earpiece. They look like secret service.

But at the same time, they also, like, they're. all their buttons on their jacket. Like, you don't do that. It's just like little tells like that. They don't seem quite human. It also helps that Hugo even is burying that New Zealand accent. So it does sound like very artificial and weird. Well, and also he's just got kind of like a weirdly shaped head.

Yeah. And like this mouth that, I don't know, like the way he grimaces, it's so, it's almost cartoonish. And it just seems like kind of a parody of a human. And I realize I'm saying like Lawrence, Laura, Hugo weaving does not look human. And I apologize for that, Hugo. I think he's a great actor. I agree he's a big fan.

But you really nailed this by just being so uncanny. You can tell that he's still in the agent mindset when he's doing Fellowship of the Ring. Because he is like, Frodo Baggins. He seems more sinister than he should. Yes, exactly. I'm speaking with an American accent. Well, I guess to go back to Keanu, too, I think he's really good in this. actually. I mean, Keanu Reeves, as we said earlier, isn't always good, and he is good in this film.

Yeah, he downplays moments that I think someone like Will Smith would have really hammed up, like, when he's like, no way. It's not like a freak out or anything. He's just like, he's just kind of overwhelmed. Or I know Kung Fu. Yeah, he's so matter of fact about it. It's just like he's always kind of. But there's like a self-effacing thing that's dumbfounded. Like Will Smith would have been like bravado and you don't get that so much from the first film. And you need that for him because the whole point of the like his whole arc is you know he is doubting Thomas he keeps being told by

everyone that he is the Messiah that he is a God and he's like oh he needs that humility that element of like I'm just a dude what is going on here and then of course this entire arc is eventually learning to accept that and there

is still a very cool metaphysical aspect of being able to understand on a higher level that you, the world around you, that you can see the matrix, you can see the numbers, and then at that moment for what it is. Yes, exactly. And then from that moment on, he can do whatever he wants.

And the agents work really well in that context, because they're invincible for the entire movie. They're terrifying. There's a real video game aspect of it. Oh, yeah. Right. They're just like NBC's infinitely replenishable. Or they're like Mr. X from Resident Evil, where maybe you can damage them, maybe you can take

them down for a bit, but they're always going to keep coming back. Well, around the same time, you had games like Amacron, the Nomad Soul, and Oddworld coming out where the protagonist had the ability to possess characters around them. You missed Messiah. I totally miss Messiah. Speaking of Shiny. That's right. Yeah, so you have like these games where one of the protagonists, core powers, is the ability to take over villains or project themselves into other characters. and here the villains have that ability and you realize like wow it's kind of flipping the tables

on the way video games work and you're super overpowered and it's done in a really great visual way where suddenly their face starts to distort and they're like ah! And then they turn into the agent. I'm actually playing a lot of FIFA right now and you'll be dribbling the ball and you'll be dribbling the ball and you'll see an AI

player kind of following you and then you can see the moment when the other player switches over to them and then they'll start, like, moving really erratically. It's very Matrix. How does Bloodborn stack up against, say, Oregon Trail? And is Bomberman just loadrunner from a different point of view? Find out on Hardcore Gaming 101's top games,

where we objectively, definitively, and scientifically rank the games you nominate for our ever-growing list. HG 101's top games. Twice a week, every week, right here on Greenlit. The award-winning Go-Nintendo podcast covers the latest Nintendo news while also diving into what's hot in pop culture, music trivia, hands-on impressions, and so much more. Hopefully, we can make you laugh, too.

You'll find new episodes of the Go Nintendo Podcasts on the Greenlit Podcast Network every single week. Bernie Sanders doesn't think the agent should exist. No, no. No one deserves that much power. I will tax the agents. Joe Biden thinks the agents will have a change of heart after he becomes the one. Work with the good agents.

We should cross the aisle. Let's jack back into the majors. The 90s was. the era of bipartisanship, by the way. Oh, it totally was. It all works. I mean, they fetishized it with George W. Bush. He was like, I'm a Uniter, not a divider. And Obama.

I never bought that. I think this film is more of the odds than the 90s, though. You think so? I do. I think it's so 1999. And maybe that's just the mentality. Maybe it's because it's in a very specific moment where anime is really taking off in video games have crossed into us a different level. I think anime was nascent.

I think it was pre-relenting. I don't think so. Evangelion was pulling up. It had already come out, had been in theaters. It was thumbs up from Roger Ebert. You're right. This movie is so, so Ghost in the Shell. When they do the jumps and it

that smashes up the pavement. This is the after effect of like a hero. I think you're underestimating the impact that Pokemon had. I mean, the backward green letters in Katakana, that is ghost of the shell. I will say anime was known, but still unknown enough that you could rip it off.

Right. The premise of Matrix is that anime is real. It is strong and it is my friend. T-Frog, right after seeing the premiere of the Matrix, and I had to go to Sunco's to buy like two episodes of Romo One Half for $39.99 subtitled. It was still not your crunchy world, you live it now. You were still buying Ronma one-a-half in 1999? I was.

You madman? I was watching Romo one-half. It stopped getting good after like 1997. Yeah. You'd moved on to Maison and Koku because you're that, you're that like, you know, classy. That was only, that was manga only. for me. Oh, the anime's pretty good.

Is it? Okay. But didn't they get rid of, like... They simplified it. Yeah, they got rid of the Cloud Coooo-Hlander kid, the airheaded kid. It's all about Kimmiguri Orange Road. Oh, yeah. That's on my pile of stuff to watch after Gundam.

No, you know, it's funny, we're talking about anime now, but like the last time we tape is the summer of anime, and Kimmerguri-Ongo Road... No, now it's Gundatum. Gundatim. But Kimmikigna Orange Road TV opening is like one of the best two minutes. of your life. Just watch you opening. I saw that recently, probably on Tumblr, and I was like, this is amazing.

Like literally perfect editing. It's truly, truly amazing. All right. This has nothing to do with the Matrix, though. Back to the Matrix. But it kind of does, because, like, this was all in the zeitgeist, and people as nerdy as the Wachowski's were totally tuned-in-in-in-so-tuned. And they were processing it, and they were translating it into Hollywood.

When we're watching this film, I was thinking about it from the anime perspective. And, like, specifically for me, the crew of the... ship and the relationship between Neo who warps into this place. They're in a coma. Yeah, it is totally the most space opera shit ever. I love it. Yes. It's the Nebuchadnezzar, which is a great name.

Another biblical reference. Yes. And, okay, so. Who's the bright Noah of the Nebuchadnezzar? I mean, the bright Noah? I mean, I guess it's not applicable. I mean, so you have the operators, right? So that would be like the operators who are pushing,

guiding the giant robots. And then you have the kid who's also the tech genius who's working in the hangar. And then you have the captain who's seen a lot. That would be... That's Morpheus. That would be Morpheus. He's wise and he's

so wise and so powerful. They have to take him out of the story for a while because he's kind of just a level of playing field basically. And you have the love interest and then you have a bunch of secondary characters who die. We cannot just just reduce Trinity to love interest.

Oh, I know, but you can also... Such a better character. You also can't just reduce Salem Mass to love interest, but, you know, she's... That's a good comparison, actually. Yeah, like, the thing about Trinity is she's so strong and so just like... Like, when people talk about strong female protagonists, it's always kind of, like, you know, I don't know. You kind of have a hard time buying it. But she is, like, she's flinty.

She has self-determination. when Neo tries to be like, oh, you stay out of the way. She's like, no, you're not keeping me out of this. She has a cute haircut? I mean, she's gorgeous. Shane just sign. We're wearing like all leather. Like, she looks great.

Okay, let's get that out of the way. We've only been talking about the Matrix. But one of my problems revisiting the Matrix is I'm still so salty about how Trinity goes out in the Matrix Revolutions. It's going to be in Matrix 4, so clearly something's happening there. I don't think there isn't Matrix Revolutions. I think it's only a matrix. Yeah, Kate, I don't want to Kate, Kate, Kate, Cat doesn't believe that there's two and three. But no, there are two months.

I do not subscribe to two and three. I know that there is a large number of people who do for some reason. Right. But I think that they're just not worth it. Well, I think Trinidad gets done dirty at the end of revolutions. But in the first film, she writes, she has more agency than Neo. She's like her own agent. No, she is a great character.

I'm just saying like. But she's also there to be in large way by calling her the Lovindrist. But, yeah, I mean, she is definitely She serves that role But she's also an inspiration In the end, she does fall in love with Neo And brings him back to life with a kiss That's all true, but she seems out of his league

A kiss of true love Right, but initially she seems out of his league Yes, the nerd is going Oh my God, the cute, out of my league girl It's totally into me The movie She has kind of this like domineering kind of sex You know, like she's wearing skin tight leather

Like, there's very self-confident. I mean, she's, she, like, in the club scene, she holds all the cards, and Neo's, like, so out of his death. He's like, what is happening? At no point is she the damsel in distress in this film. So you're looking at Neo from the perspective of the nerd who is looking at the cool gal. Yeah. Morpheus, like, the leader, the guy who knows everything. He's the man with a plan.

He's the one who's abducted. It doesn't, it doesn't revert to the, like, damsels. Thank God, yeah. This film actually does subvert so many tropes. of what you would expect from a traditional sci-fi or fantasy narrative. And there's that great moment where she calls it. She's like, oh, I need to fly a helicopter.

Calls in, gets the information, beamed into her head. She's like, all right, I can fly a helicopter now. Yeah, it was super clever. Yeah. I think another movie this character, Trinity would be like, in a James Bond movie, be the femme fatale who would get killed or sexually conquered by Bond

or be the femme fatale who would just be murdered, you know, like the female villain because she has power, she has to be murdered. But even her falling in love with Neo is empowering to him. It's the thing that pushes him over the edge to make him realize, like, I have to step up and I have to accept, you know, what everyone's been telling me about myself, that I do have these powers, that I do have these abilities because I need to, you know, like I need to, I guess, live up to the potential we have here. And the dating pool is very shallow. It's not like he steps up to her. No, but she pushes him.

It's not like he's like, yeah, it's not like he's like, I've got to save her. and, you know, accept my power. It's more like I have to accept what she believes in about me. And on the tip of this being an anime spaceship, they really do a great job of making the Nemrecnezzar feel like a real place, especially at the final set piece in the film

where Neo is inside the Matrix and the robots are cutting in. And it's a really intense sequence because when it's all over, you literally see them right there. Yeah, I was going to say it's a bit like alien. I mean, there's not an alien on this ship,

but in the same, like, claustrophobic, you're in this enclosed space, you care about the ship itself and the crew, you know? Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, everyone kind of has their own spaces, but it's really a lot of public spaces, like shared spaces.

And one of the things that I didn't catch my first time through the movie, obviously, but what that you notice on the, like a repeat viewing, is when Seifer is talking to the agent and he's in kind of like the computer. bank room and he thinks he's alone and Neo walks up behind him and he has like this oh shit they just caught me moment that Neo doesn't know how to read the matrix yet so he's like got this you know basically betrayal of the entire ship just out in front of him on these

screens unaware that Neo is behind him and he freaks out for a second but then he realizes like oh Neo doesn't actually know what's happening I do remember on my first viewing on opening date, figuring out the Cypher was going to betray them, though. I think it is a little telegraphed. It's not a huge shock. He has dinner with an agent and is like, take me back into the Matrix. It's not just telegraphed. It's like, it's going to happen.

Here's Judas. But then the movie really kicks into high gear when they go on the mission and Cypher's going to betray them. And all the ways all the things, ways that they play with the Matrix is so cool. Like the deja vu moment.

the way that suddenly there will be walls around them. They're like crap, and he can pull out two giant guns. Mouse can pull out two giant guns, but they ultimately can't do anything. He's totally taken out, and then it cuts back to the real world. He's just, like, shaking, and then he's gone, and poor tank. And then the moment when Cypher is, like, unplugging them, and that's a really creepy sequence right there, when Switch is going, no, not like this.

no, oh my God. And then, boom, she's just, she's gone, right? Jeez, that's an effed up scene even now. Great movie. And then it just feels like the movie never stops to catch its breath after that. It just keeps going and going and going. It really feels like, yeah, it takes us time to build up, but then once it gets to the point where it's like the point of no return, it's over.

But we do need to talk about the sequels. And Shane, you were actually in one of the sequels. We were actually in a sequel. Yeah, I mean, like the short version of this is between the Matrix coming out and the launch of the sequel Matrix Reloaded, which was, what, three years later? How many years? 2003? 2002. Oh, two years later.

I had moved to California to follow my dreams to become a games journalist. My first job was at gamers.com. I worked with lots of cool people out there. Did you meet Thresh? I got Thresh. I sat in his Ferrari. I worked with people like John Ricardy and Mark McDonald and... Wow, the real celebrity.

Christian Nutt and all sorts of celebs. Anyway, then we all got laid off. And then when we all got laid off, we were destitute here in the Bay Area where it's very expensive. Was it very expensive even during the dot-com crash? This was 20 years ago. It was still very expensive. And so we didn't know what to do. And a few of us applied my friend Chris Leonard.

He, we don't have texting. Do we have texting? He probably emailed me. He was like, hey, apparently they're going to film part of the second Matrix movie here in the Bay Area. we should sign up to become extras so we could be in this movie and it costs like $100 to go get headshots made at a talent agency but we did it

and we submitted our headshots and a few of us Chris and I got called back by the casting agency and so we became background actors in the Matrix Reloaded. It wasn't, we weren't hired for the project called Matrix Reloaded. The code name was called The Burley Man

and we would drive out to... It's the name of the Wachowski's production It is, yeah. And the burly brawl is the code name for like the big fight against all the agents. Anyway, so for... It's just one agent. For two and a half months,

we would drive out to Alameda and on the old disused army base or there's a naval base. Oh, yeah, Navy. Oh, is that where it was filmed. I thought it was filmed in L.A. Wait a minute. They filmed it in Alameda.

They filmed it in Alameda. Yeah, there is that army base. It takes up a huge amount of space. Yeah, there's a disused army base on Alameda where they built the freeway. And for two and a half months, not every day. You would wait until the night before

and you'd call in to this number. to find out if you had to show up the next day. It's like jury duty. Yeah, it's like jury duty. Pretty much. So over the course of two and a half months, I probably end up doing like, I don't know, 30 or 40 days total of as a background driver

and for a week as a specialty extra, I got upgraded. And it was amazing. Like, you always imagine what does it like to make movies. It was lots of downtime, lots of waiting around, but also like meeting cool people, eating delicious food,

seeing crazy stunts. And I was driving my, own car, which was, I had a Mitsubishi Mirage. It's gray. Like, people like, okay, can you see me in the movie? I'm like, well, no, only if you like zoom in and pause it. Wait, so you were driving your own, my own personal car? My own car. Yeah. So if we get the Blu-ray, we can zoom in and see Shane's old car. It's pretty hard to find out. We need the 4K master. Right. But yeah, you would bring your own car. And then, like, there'd be the stunt drivers who had stunt cars. And they were the ones who were doing all the stunts. And we weren't doing stunts. And you were

just, like, fodder, basically. Right. We were basically driving around. And, like, Most days were kind of boring, but then, like, the days when giant things were happening, obviously, like, there's a huge chase scene that's 30 minutes in the middle of the Matrix Reloaded. That's where we were filming. And there's parts where, like, the semis are crashing into each other and exploding. And, like, the days when there were effects, that was crazy to watch. And it was, like, six hours of preparing for one shot because the effects had to go. And, like, things had to hit each other.

And the stunt drivers had to drive through. And it was super cool. The whole experience was neat. And, like, a few memories I had were, like, one day, we were, like, eating lunch, a craft services. Somebody had left a huge storyboard sitting there. And like what I read

about is they had hired for both Matrix and the sequels, like two comics guys, Jeff Darrow and someone else to like make storyboards of the entire script, right? So like we found like this giant binder which had like drawn storyboards of the entire film in it, which we were just going through it. It was like super

cool. And we got to meet, you know, most of the the stunt doubles for the main people like Trinity and Neo and Morpheus. They were super cool. I thought they did their own stunts. You think that. They did some of their own stunts, but not on the motorcycle. Oh, no knows Kung Fu.

On the motorcycles, they didn't do their own. Yeah, and Moss got injured during the Matrix reloaded. But yeah, it was really interesting and like I look back on it very fondly. But I always remember as we were filming the chase on the freeway, the, the, uh, first assistant director and second assistant director, we never worked with the Wachowski's directly. They would tell us that's like, oh, when the movie comes out, there'll be like a city, you'll see like all these finished effects.

And so I remember going and seeing the film in the theater on the day it came out. I mean, like, oh, there is no, like, city. Like, it just kind of looks like what it really looks like. When you watch that chase sequence, like, that's just kind of what it looks like in Alameda. Like, they didn't CG like a giant city into the background or anything. So I just felt like, oh, do they just, like, ran out of time?

That's so weird because I live in Alameda. Right. Yeah. So every time I go to Alameda, it's really weird. Now the Army base is full of distilleries and... Yeah, and like last year I went to a music festival out there. They moved the Treasure Island Festival to that place. And I was like, oh, weird.

This is where we filmed The Matrix. We loaded. So, yeah, I looked back on it very fondly. And then I wanted to be in the Zion dance sequence. Oh, my God. Doing E. The best sequence. So that was a separate casting.

That was when I used my balance. bathroom break. Right. So that was a separate cast. A separate casting call. You could have been part of the orgy. Except I couldn't because when that casting call got posted, it said, sorry, no Caucasians. Oh. Reverse racism strikes again. It's a real problem. I thought was pretty interesting. And if you go back and watch that sequence, it would be like, yep, no Caucasians. Wow, that's so interesting. That's Shane in the Matrix 2-0. That's a lesser-known Matrix Reloaded Trivia, right there.

Oh, I guess when I got upgraded to the specialty extra, I was a crash survivor. I was crash survivor number three. And, like, there's a sequence in the crash, in the, in the crash, you know, chase sequence where, like, they show for a brief second, like, some people who are being tended to by paramedics on the side of the road. And I'm one of them, and I'm kind of like holding my head. Are you credited as that role? No, because I'm not, it's not a speaking role. It doesn't speak, so SAG doesn't apply. Right.

And the director was like, oh, make sure you only emote one emotion because non-union extras can't embo. more than one emotion. That is it great. Oh, my God. So I have only emoting the pain. So it's funny to think about the fact that Matrix Reloaded came out in 2002

because when it came out, or was it 2003? Reloaded was 2002. Revelations was 2003. I filmed it in 2001, so it makes it they film back to back they were filmed back to the future. Actually, it might have been 2003 early.

I think it might have been like April and July, So that's the summer, I remember it came on in the summer because I was literally just out of school. Yeah, no, I think it was like June and August, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I was out of work, so it would have been 2002. So Matrix Reloaded, it comes out in 2002. It's funny to think about the shoe being on the foot a little, on the other foot a little bit, because when the original Matrix came out in 99, it was totally overshadowed by Phantom Menace,

and then subsequently, like, surge past it. In 2002, the Matrix was. was the biggest thing going. I mean, people were, at least I was incredibly pumped for the pre-release. It was a huge deal. The hype was insane for it. People were talking about the freeway chase scene.

The Burley Brawl. And the attack of the clones was that same summer. And everybody was basically like, oh, can George Lucas manage to save this sinking ship? Like, what the heck? You're right? Those were the same summer. I don't want to say, so no one attacks us in the comments. Both movies came in 2003.

The first one was in May. The second one was in November. Okay. And also, to... May, May 2003. My birth, my 21st birthday. It was a year after Star Wars. Okay.

Yeah. Well, there goes my entire point. Well, but, okay, attack of the clones had been disappointing. Just to, like, to... For sure. Right. To remind you, like, I camped out four days for Phantom Menace. And I lived here in San Francisco, and I went to go see the first screening, there was

no midnight screening. It was like a 10 a.m. screening of Attack of the Clones. And people were... laughing at it when like when padma and anagram are rolling around in the fucking flowers people are laughing at it really what about the yodama oh i mean an attack of the clones oh yeah but like i remember thinking how quickly we all turned so matrix you know the year later matrix uh reload it comes out and again like i'm watching an opening day and people are not loving it the way they love the matrix hmm i don't remember not quite the same i remember everybody came out being like well

there's a cliffhanger it's like back to the future too well you knew they were going to Maybe two movies, though, is he? Yeah, I thought everyone knew that. Yeah, you shouldn't be shot. Yeah, but, well, okay, so the cliffhanger ends with suddenly Keanu or Neo can control the real world as well. And people are like, wait a minute, there's a matrix within a matrix. Well, he becomes all powerful, basically, at the end of the. No, it's actually something to do with, like, something that's connected to the matrix.

He has still, he still has power over it, but anything else. But that was the theory was like, they're like, oh, my God, are they doing a matrix within a matrix? This was 10 years before inception. It's crazy. People were annoyed by that idea. I think people were like willing to take a wait-and-see approach after reloaded because it was kind of not what people were expecting, but it still had a lot of cool stuff. So they were like, so let's see how it ends.

So we're reloaded and revolutions were within a few months? It was like six months apart. May and November. In my memory, they're like ages apart. No, it was the same year. Time moves slower back then. Yeah, yeah. So, like, yeah, that was a very eventful summer for me. I remember because I saw, I was out of work. I saw the Matrix reloaded a morning, morning viewing, like a morning screening, because I was out of work on opening day. I was like, I might as well go. So I went and saw it. I was like, huh, I don't know. A couple of months later, I got a job at OneUp.com, which was named yet, and moved to California. And then a couple of months after that, the Matrix Reloaded came out. So I went to. see it at the Metri-on with all my co-workers on opening day and was like, oh, this was not

good. But it's kind of weird because I was in like two very different places in life when this movie came out. So it's very, very like embedded in my brain. I never saw the sequels ever. I was way more of a snob then than I am now. But I just thought the first movie ended was such a great like open-ended mic drop sort of moment where it's just like, yeah, and he has other adventures and it keeps going on.

But I think just like with Star Wars, the more they try to explain the world and Ed new ones, the worse it gets. Completely agree. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the first movie is just a perfect arc. Interestingly enough, I feel the same way about the original God of War, which God of War 2 and 3 came out.

Okay. Didn't really need it. And then they saved it with the new God of War on PlayStation 4. But don't worry. The sequel will mess it up. Well, it's funny because I agree the Matrix is much tighter, obviously the best of the series. But it does like kind of allude to this much larger mythology and like two and three

kind of indulge in that to both their detriment and their success. Like, I personally like the Merrimandian and I like even the scene with the architect, but like in general, two and three are just kind of bloated. And like, you two, I think, you know, I was close to the project and I worked on it.

But at the end of it, I was like, oh, it's like a B-B-minus. I don't hate it. It has some good scenes. But like, we'll see how this thing ends. But by the time Matrix Revolutions came out, I saw that an opening day as well. And I really had a bad reaction to it. Specifically, the first matrix,

The Matrix is mostly set in the Matrix with a few scenes in the real world. The Matrix Revolutions is mostly set in the real world with a few scenes in the Matrix. And I feel like that inversion really hurts it. Like the real world is not interesting in that universe. It's kind of boring. And I don't think it has the cultural power the second and third movies of the first one has. I don't see any memes or references or, hey, remember this, remember that. They really wanted to create like a universe with this story.

I mean, you have the games that we're going to talk about shortly. And the Animatrix, like, all these were built in, in tandem to the sequel movies. When I think about the Reloaded, I think about the Twins because they were on set with us a lot because they weren't known people and they were, like, we saw them all the time. And, like, in the final film, I was like, oh, they don't really work. It doesn't really work. Yeah, the Twins are the one reference point I think has lasted, but even then it's pretty rare to see a reference to those guys. But for me, they weren't effective. Like, I wasn't scared and I wasn't impressed.

I wanted to like the Matrix Reloaded, so when I came out of it, I was going Yeah, that was good. Yeah, yeah. There were some interesting ideas. Like the, you know, what happened to Agent Smith after Neo blew him up at the end of the first Matrix, like how he kind of, his code combined with Neo's essence,

and he grew into something much more powerful than he was ever intended to be and could even venture into the real world. Like, all that was really interesting. But then there was all this stuff like, hey, a whole bunch of machines are attacking a city full of smelly people with porridge. Who like to have orgies. Yeah. Can you imagine how bad that orgy smell? Good God.

Oh, no. There's no fresh water in this world. Gross. No, thank you. Well, this is when they were also putting together the big transmedia property as well. And we'll probably get into that a little bit because the entry of the matrix came out at about the same time. Yeah. Yeah, and like, some of the characters in Majority Reloaded are like barely featured, and then they're the protagonists of the game.

Let's talk about, let's talk about Enter the Matrix. Shane, were you allowed to review Enter the Matrix for EGM? I reviewed Enter the Matrix. Even though you were in the movie? Where is the journalist's integrity? Well, collusion. So, I worked for EGM at the time, and we had a cover story on it, and we had the exclusive review. And that exclusive review still somehow meant we had to review retail copies.

of the game and we had to like pay a lot of money in order to like turn our magazine in late and I still remember to this day finishing trying to finish the retail release of the Nintendo GameCube enter the matrix and getting several blue screens of death including one on the final level of the game it is a shit show I mean come on I think it was then that from the like regular gamer perspective that we realize like shiny probably isn't that great like I think we realized like it was Messiah was before that and Earth Form Jim was like a fun if really broken and a living game. But like entry to the matrix is like bizarre. It's like four different engines and different types of gameplay and it's just like clearly unfinished. The Shiny refers to polishing a turd.

Yes. Yeah so this was, this game was developed by shiny entertainment. Formerly of Earthworm Jim. But like now no one even knows who that is anymore. Run by Dave Perry. Not Doug. People know who Dave Perry is. So I will come out in defense of

of Bob here, he got a lot of crap from people for referring to Dave Perry as Doug Perry. But Doug Perry was a game journalist who was very active, very visible from IGN. Around the same time that Shiny was a force in gaming. It's a totally natural, normal mistake. Let it go, people. A tale of two Perrys, if you will. Anyway, yes, two Perrys, yes. None of them were platypusy.

But I always say, even at the time, we were there, Jeremy, it wasn't like, Shiny. I wasn't in the games press yet. Okay, well, it was a few months before I got in the games press. Post-Messiah, Shiny, was no longer AAA. I mean, like, it wasn't like, oh, you just hired... They didn't even get to do their own sequel to MDK. Right, right. It wasn't like you hired Miyamoto to make the Matrix game.

I think Messiah was the last chance where they, if you were alive at the time, they talked real big about that game. Yeah, I remember the NextGen magazine cover, like, I'm Jesus for video games, and then they reviewed it and they were like, actually, no. I mean, the entry matrix was a unique idea that it was like a story that helped flesh out the story, between the first Matrix film and the second film. And, yeah, the game stars Jada Pinkett Smith's character.

Which is funny because Will Smith being in the original Matrix. Whoa. Yeah. And some other guy who is also in the second film who I don't remember. Well, and they show up in Matrix Reloaded and are basically like, hi, folks, we're going on to our other adventure over here. Please buy the video game. I remember neither the name of the actor nor the character who else you could play as besides

her, but yeah, I have it written down, hang on, hang on. And didn't they introduce it in the Animatrix? Perhaps as well. We had the flight of the Osiris. Ghost was the other character. Very memorable name. Who portrayed him? I did not write that down because I don't care.

He's an actor. So, yes, he is, an actor acting as a character. Cat brought up the Animatrix, which is probably better than the Enter the Matrix. I recognize the Animatrix. Enter the Matrix directly follows on Final Flight of the Osiris from the Animatrix, which was directed and produced by SquareSoft's movie studio. Oh, the Hawaii one? Yes, the only thing they produced other than the Spirits Within.

Wow. Holy shit. And the final flight of the Osiris was really good. It was. I need to rewatch anime. So basically the Osiris is a ship that's trying to deliver a package. It's destroyed. But Niobe's ship, the Logos,

picks up the package and delivers it. And then they do a bunch of stuff kind of behind the scenes of the movies. So stuff that happens in the movies is made possible by Nyobes and Niobe and Ghost in the game. But you don't need to know any of this to watch the movie.

It's just like, oh, there's people helping out. So Enter the Matrix is like mainly a clumsy third-person action game with some bad driving sequences and some bad like flying sequences. Hmm. Oh. A case study and a developer

trying to do too much. Yeah, but it's like a very unfur finished. Our friend Mark McDonald, in his review in Electronic Gaming Monthly, posited that the game was rushed to market to hit the Matrix Reloaded's release date because they were released simultaneously. Oh, yeah. And I'm pretty sure I gave it a 3.5.

And I think that, like, everybody was very, very upset with our reviews because we had the exclusive reviews. I know I read those reviews when they were alive. It got a ton of hype. It did. I mean, it was a big deal. A lot of money went into this. The Wachowski's were very heavily involved in the production and creation of this game.

it was not a small, like it was meant to be, you know, a transmedia property, you know, like video games and movies, they're the same. Like, they can't exist without each other. And that's very thematically appropriate for the Matrix, but, yeah. It was a novel idea in 2003. I mean, because we were only just starting to come around to the notion of games on that level. Years before the compilation of Final Fantasy 7. And like, you know, I think this was before the mana series of the polymorphic content. I think it's proven that, like, oh, you can want to do five things at once in different media, but it's very hard to make them all good.

Animatrix, was there one by Masamunei Shiro, or by making that up? I believe you made that up, but there was, but there was some great, there were definitely some great Japanese directors. Like, two or three of them are good. Chinichiro, Watanabe. The second Renaissance is the one that always stands in my mind, the one that was done by production IG. Is that the, is that the basically like, here's the backstory? Yes. That's my least favorite one.

Really? I love the one that's like, you know, the kids finding the glitch in the Matrix. Oh, that one's good. I mean, that's really good. That's very Satoshi Kohn to me. I, no, yes, that one is excellent. But the second Renaissance always stood out to me because, first of all, it's beautifully animated. It is.

And second of all, they do such a great job of realizing the horror of these robots. From the very start, there's a lot of really graphic and intense imagery. like the bits where the robots on trial and you're seeing how he's killed his family and then it's subsequently executed and then later on when they're actually going to war with the robots. Yeah, I mean, I can't watch those Boston Dynamics videos of people beating the shit out of like primitive robots

without thinking, oh my God, did these people not watch the Animatrix? What are they doing? You idiots. But no, it was really intense and it still stands in my memory to this day. I don't say the Animatrix was well-received. Better received it into the Matrix or revolutions or reloaded, really. It's funny because Bob's doing Futurama and what a cartoon, a free plug for you.

Oh, thank you. And this was the DVD era. And the Matrix really, like, it was big, but the DVDs. The Matrix was the first DVD to sell more than a million years. That's true. When the PlayStation 3 came out, the thing you bought with it was The Matrix. I was going to say, like, the PlayStation 2 was, according to Ken Kuduragi, just like jacking into the Matrix. Oh, sure. It really was.

Yeah, when I was in college in the early 2000s, that was like, everyone had Fight Club and The Matrix on DVD. And when you go to Best Buy to see, like, oh, what is DVD? What is this new technology? It would be, like, them showing the Matrix with, like, seven speakers around the TV. And this was, yeah. In like 2002, 2003 is when everybody was starting to buy TV show DVDs. And here we are with the Animatrix.

And it coming out on straight to DVD was a big freaking deal, if I recall correctly. At least it was to me. Well, I'll say, actually, it was pivotal in this. cachet of like Western producers getting Japanese talent to make something that's actually good. That's, you know, that was pretty new. I mean, well, anime was very much on the up at that time because adult

swim was firmly ensconced at this moment. Well, as you bring up anime, you know, we've kind of skirted around to Matrix Revolutions, but I want to get to what I really, really, really, really fucking hate about that film, and it's the last real. It's when suddenly, Neo and Agent Smith are just Dragon Ballsie shooting giant

Kaiju fucking fireballs at one another. It's a disastrous ending. I mean, it gets even worse in the Path of Neo. The Path of Neo is a really interesting game because they basically... Shiny took... Is it a sequel? The Path of Neo is... You're just Neo.

It is basically a retelling of Neo's saga through the Matrix. Starting with the first game. Really? And going all the... Wait, wait. Pause. Don't people think this game is good, ostensibly? It's good that it's better than the other one, right?

They were like, oh, well, they did a better job of it than... And who made it? Was it shiny? It was a reaction to people saying, well, I want to be Neo and enter the Matrix. I don't want to be Nairobi. I lived in the gaming industry when this came out. But because Engine Medes was so bad, I blacked this whole thing out. Like, I never played it.

I never touched it. When the game came out, the first thing I saw of it was someone was like, hey, I recorded the ending. Watch this. That's the only thing you care about. So the Path of Neo is really interesting because it's basically like a retelling of the Matrix. through Neo's perspective, but there are branching story paths where you can explore alternate outcomes.

So if you are playing as Neo and Morpheus is like, hey, I sent you a FedEx package, go and stand on the balcony and escape, you can actually follow that all the way through instead of being like, no way, no way. And so, like, if that happens, then the story advances a little bit differently.

It eventually converges with the main storyline, but it plays out differently. Interesting. But the final part of it, the Wachowski's actually come out as like Atari 2,600 characters. What? And they start talking to you and they're like, hey, you know, some people didn't like the way the movie ended. They thought I was a downer.

So here's an alternate happy ending. And you play as Neo fighting Agent Smith as like a kaiju. He basically is like the entire city that comes to life and the buildings form a giant Agent Smith and you destroy the hell out of a giant Agent Smith. This is something I looked up on YouTube when YouTube was new. Like, I have to see this ending I've heard about. Yes, this happened right around the time that YouTube launched. So people were like, in Game Videos.com. Maybe I should revisit The Path of the Neo.

It's kind of weird. Like, it's still a buggy game and kind of messy, but it does play better than Enter the Matrix. You wouldn't probably have as many blue screens. But, yeah, the Wachowskis were heavily involved with it. They actually kind of were like, yeah, people didn't really like the way we did the movies. So here's a fun way to do something different. And that would have been right around the time that they were starting to work on SpeedRacer and that kind of thing as well. Which is really good.

Yeah, well, everybody was down on Speed Racer when it came out. And now everybody's like, no, Speed Racer's awesome. It's gorgeous. Didn't they also do Jupiter ascending or whatever that was that? They did. Was that good? No. It has fans.

Not me. Just like Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolution. I think Speed Racer is their second best film. No, I totally agree. Watchbound as well. with Jennifer Shelley, whose voice is amazing. It's amazing to me that there's so many video games because, I mean, there was Enter the Matrix

and then Path of Neo, and then the MMO also launched. Well, it's The Matrix Online. The Matrix Online, which Sega published. Originally it was going to be Ubisoft, but then Ubisoft was like, actually MMOs are losing a lot of money, so let's not. Didn't they try to do their own, like the agent or whatever, the agency? Like somebody had a Matrix-style MMO that never took off.

There was a game called the agency. I think that was... It never actually got released. Agent. Agent. That was rock star. It was rock star. Interesting.

So when it came out, I think this was around the time that EverQuest had exploded and totally made it big. And so everybody wanted to make an MMO around a major media property. Star Wars galaxies came out. And the Matrix was their answer to that. It's interesting. Once again, Matrix is kind of entwined with Star Wars. It's interesting the internet was like a sequel to the films. Which one?

Was it? I mean, the Matrix was... The Matrix Online was a sequel to the films. It took place after the big reckoning between Neo and the machines. And they were like, oops, sorry for killing your Jesus. And so, yeah, the premise was basically, like, humans had basically all been dumped out of the Matrix. And there was the red pill contingent that wanted to keep it that way. And the blue pill contingent that wanted to get back into the Matrix.

And then there was the Merovingian contingent that was just like doing whatever. And it's kind of interesting because they took. you know, kind of like standard MMO RPG concepts like spellcaster and forger and warrior and turn them into kind of like matrix-inspired things where you're distorting the matrix and using, you know, Neo-like powers. And the, you know, I never played the game,

but I actually kind of followed its storyline as it evolved. Did anyone here play it? No, I don't think so. I remember I was just starting to cover video, games when it was shutting down in 2009? No, I actually followed it as it was happening because it was interesting because there was a lot of wheel

spinning because you have to do that with MMOs, but they were all very obsessed with finding like fragments of Neos Essence in the Matrix. Which year? What year was 2005? 2005 2009. But it was, okay, I remember because when Sega announced it was at E3 and it was... Okay, so this was two years after Star Wars Galaxy and a year

after World Warcraft. Yeah, the misfortune would be developed during World of Warcrafts. Yeah, but after launching after. I just remember Like when it got announced, it was, like, weird, and, like, the Matrix wasn't so cool anymore. Right. But they actually were, like, doing stuff with the narrative of the Matrix to the point that, like, the big thing that happened, and they never really managed to top us or gather more news headlines than when this happened. But they killed Morpheus. Like, Morpheus died in an attack.

Like, the character died. You can watch videos of this, too, of it happening. It was kind of a big deal. And, like, that was kind of the last time you really saw the Matrix Online and head. headlines. That was like 2006. But when it happened, people were like, whoa, that's wild. And so there were a lot of story that, whoa, whoa. I know Morpheus is dead. Yeah, like they, I feel like they tried, but at the end that when they killed it, they were like, according to Wikipedia maybe, I can't remember where I read this. There were like 500 active participants playing the game at the time. So not that great. I think giant bomb. Yeah, they covered the end of it very well. Their article was called Not Like This.

Yeah, and I think they were doing videos of being the last people online when it closed down. The closure of MMOs is always an interesting time. So apocalyptic. I wonder if they're like private servers of this. Like there are every closed MMO. Oh, there are. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I was just reading on Waypoint from like circa 2016 or so about somebody who basically had a private server going with Matrix Online.

because there's nostalgia for everything, apparently. You know, it's funny, so in this last year, about a year ago, there was the announcement that maybe Warner was going to make a new Matrix film without the Wichowski's, and that was kind of met with strange, you know, disdain. And then a few months ago, when we were recording, it was announced that it's moving forward with the Wichowski's. And no, just Lanna Wichowski.

Just Lanna. Okay, one of the Wichowski's. But for me, I was weirdly excited. And, like, now, after doing this podcast and revisiting the first film. I am kind of like open, more open to it than I thought I was. I want to see where they're going with this because they pretty definitively killed off Trinity and Neo in the revolutions. And when this rumor first hit last year, it was going to be a reboot, which I thought was actually maybe a better idea. But now it's apparently a sequel. So we'll see what happens

with it. But like, part of me is like I felt like because the Matrix games that I played, well, the one that I played was so shitty. I never played a good Matrix game. And I feel like wouldn't to be cool if one day there was a good Matrix game? I think now the industry is better situated to do something like that because you know if Shiny were around today

to make a Matrix game they would not create their own buggy, jinky ass engine. They would just license Unreal Engine 4. They would have a steady stable bedrock of technology to work from and it would be fine. Like they wouldn't have to deal with all those issues. They could actually

just focus on game design. And I I think, you know, they would be more open to outsourcing. They'd be able to bring in more talent to get things done. Even if they had to hit a deadline, they would just make a better game. I think maybe the industry is better geared to do. We're seeing something similar happening right now with Jedi Fallen Order, where the movie is about to come out as of the recording this podcast. I apologies for dating this podcast, by the way. And the rise of Skywalker.

Jedi Fallen Order is going to be coming out right around that. same time and yeah it's in a different time period but more or less like it's supposed to be like it's definitely like skating on the the skirts of Star Wars hype. The expanded universe as it were by the way. The Mandalorian

coming out as well. I have a correction for angry people who are going to yell at me when the Matrix Online shut down they lost the source code so there are no private server. The irony. Unlike Maridian 59 where you can still play on a but somebody was going out and trying to to recreate the Matrix Online

through Unreal Engine 4. Wacky. Because... I mean, the Matrix Online was mostly about trying to find, like, the code for, you know, Neo's fragments or whatever. So, like, I still feel like

the Matrix IP could be well served as, like, a really flashy, like, belt brawler, like, platinum games developed, like, beat them up. Come on. Come on. I like it. I want, like, a second life kind of,

you know, shin-moo sort of thing where you're, like, living in the Matrix. and learning to, you know, bend its reality. Come on, you don't think, like, Neo and Trinity fighting and like an Aliens vs. Predator Capcom kind of experience can work. That's so mundane and limited, though. Actually, we didn't mention the influences too much, but Platinum games could not exist without the Matrix

because every one of their games has bullet time in it. I don't know if the new, whatever the Switch game was called, I didn't play it. Astral Chain? Does that have, like, Bullet Time style mechanics? There's Bullet Time, there's Bullet Witch, which was not. I guess you're right, Bob. Like, Bullet Time is the real thing.

Yeah, Max Payne. I mean, every game now, like after the Matrix, every game has a slowdown mechanic. The legacy of the Matrix is full in time. Even BioWare games, like, you know, starting with Cotor, you would be able to basically pull up a menu in real time and everything would slow down or stop while you kind of performed in action. Yeah. You still see it to this day. Hugely influential. Yeah.

I mean, to some extent, it was really overdone right after the Matrix. But, yeah, movie makers still use it. It's not a discredited function. Yeah, it's like Zach Snyder where it's like slow fast, slow fast, slow fast. Yeah, right? What was that stupid like barnyard kung fu movie? Oh, Kung Pow Under the Fist? Yeah, I mean, 99 and 2002 was like just the Drek of Matrix Parodies.

Shrek had one. Like everybody was doing like, what if bullet time but this? What if bullet time, but extremely bad and stupid. Oh, well. I would like a, if a game were, if there were to be a new Matrix game, I would like them to explore the meta aspects of doing a video game about effectively being in a video game so I think

what was the horror game that came out on the GameCube Eternal Darkness like think about like that like insanity effects and all that yeah where they're kind of messing around with you and making you feel as if like the world around you is actually the Matrix like if they could pull that off

that could be at least worthwhile I think the Matrix game I would like would be a JRP 2D, Cheeby S-D. If we're talking about the future of the Matrix, my honest belief is that I wonder if this idea could possibly appeal to anybody

not living in 1999. I feel like it was the perfect time for this movie and just the state of the world and our thought patterns has changed so much. I just don't know if this is still appealing to people. It's true. You can't... Modern young people don't understand what it is to unplug from a world where you're not

24-7 online being judged by millions of people. We probably saw Matrix 4. It was called Ralph Breaks the Internet. Exactly. And it's like this was very much of the X-Files 90s world where it's just like we don't have problems. So like what about conspiracies? It's like now the conspiracies are open and nobody cares about them.

We know about everything about everything. So it's like I just don't know of this kind of idea is appealing now. That's why I feel like this is a real pre-9-11 movie. And being jacked in doesn't have the same appeal. Yeah. Even the term jacked in is a break from the internet. The truth is you can't, it literally cannot disconnect as a normal American. No.

I would like to red pill from Twitter. Your job won't let you disconnect. Yep. We have the, the Matrix has us as we speak. It's too late. All right. Well, anyway, everyone, I would like to say thank you for the messages you've submitted through the Matrix to let us know what you think about the Matrix. Unfortunately, we don't have time to read those, but we will have a mailbag episode where we touch on all the cool.

listener submission emails that we've received. So that's rad. But I think we are done now. It's late and we're all sleepy and ready to red pill ourselves away from this podcast. But yeah, it's been a good conversation. And I think Bob is right. I think, you know, like the Matrix happened in 1999 and that was the time for it. And now the world is different, heavily influenced by the Matrix in a lot of ways and there's no escaping it. But if you are okay with that, then you can continue to stay jacked into Retronauts and listen to us on a weekly basis, more than weekly, actually, at Retronauts.com and on iTunes and so on and so forth. And you can support us through Patreon if you would like to hear

more conversations about classic games and classic movies and the intersection between such. That's patreon.com slash retronauts. Anyway, guys and ladies, please, let's talk about where the internet can find you. What is the URL to which you can be accessed by your fellow travelers in the Matrix? You can find me on Twitter at Shane Watch, all one word, Shane Watch. You can find me on Twitter at the underscore Caput. Also, I have a podcast. It's Acts of the Blood God.

It's U.S. Gimmers RPG podcast. I don't know when this episode's coming out, but we're in the middle, as of the recording of this, of a console RPG quest, We just did the Sega Saturn, which is great. I bet there's a lot of good stuff there. Was there an episode of Linkle Liver Story? Yes, we bring that one up. Shit. I got to download that.

Yeah. Yeah, we had John Linnaman from Digital Foundry on it. Oh, nice. And John Linnaman is... We need to get him on here. Is right up there with Jeremy in terms of collections. Linkle Liverstory has the best 3D tree on Saturn. There you go.

So download Axis of the Blood Guide and listen to that one. Shot's fired by 3D trees. Hey, it's Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And if you want to go back to 1999, check out my other podcast, Talking Simpsons, and What a Cartoon? Go to Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons or find them wherever you find podcasts. Right now we're doing Season 10 and Talking Futurama Season 2, both taking place in 1999. So if you want to transport yourself back into 1999 by what was being made fun of and tackle, the subjects being tackled, check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

I thought you were going to have a podcast you recorded in 1999. I can't make that happen, no. And finally, you can find me, Jeremy Parrish, on Twitter as GameSpite, and on YouTube, under my own name, Jeremy Parrish, I will take you back to 1998 to the Game Boy Colors launch. How's that for exciting? Yes, that's right. Anyway, we're done here. We're logging out. Wait, wait, T-Frog.

What's the most recent book I can buy from T-Frog's books? I haven't, I didn't actually get to do one this year. So my most recent books have been Game Boy Works, one and two. next year. All right. Thanks, everyone, and we will see you on virtual space sometime, avoiding meat space at all costs. Thank you.