00:00:00
00:00:01
The Matrix (1999)- Neo is Just a Little Guy
29 Plays1 month ago
The Matrix has you...and us. We're fangirling out on this episode, sorry not sorry. What can you expect from good honest millennial nerds? We tried to look at it with fresh eyes, don't know that we totally succeeded there. There are some moments of background noise, we asked for a clean program to run this recording but it doesn't always work out that way. Follow the white rabbit.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://theface.com/style/the-matrix-fashion-keanu-reeves-jada-pinkett-smith-y2k-trend-gen-z-cyber-punk-digital-fashion-metaverse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix
Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design- Deborah Nadoolman Landis
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome. Today we are talking about the 1999 film, The Matrix. sir I'm pretty excited that we've gotten to this point. How are you feeling about The Matrix? I am feeling torn because I'm so excited to be here. Like Back to the Future 2 is such like a seminal moment, you know, where it's like, ooh, we were tipping into all of the reference points we know so well. But, and we'll get into it more as we talk about it, on this rewatch I realized how many times I've seen this movie in my life. Oh my gosh, yeah. I was trying to figure out, ah I think I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, but I honestly can't remember because I've seen it so many times that I can't remember the first time that I saw it. It was so long ago and it so changed
00:01:15
Speaker
how I saw movies because it it came out in 1999. What year of school was that? Was that seventh grade? I think I might have been in sixth grade. Yeah, sixth grade because we're the same year. Yeah. And so it would have been like, yeah, middle school. And so it was right at that tipping point in middle school where you're starting to get more um critical about things that you watch and and you're really starting to kind of like leave like exclusively kid family films behind yeah and starting to watch like i was watching some very adult movies
00:01:48
Speaker
I was watching go on watching like serious movies that are intended for adult audiences who can handle you know the big explosions and the betrayals, like dark stuff. I was watching that stuff sooner than a lot of my contemporaries, but I wasn't necessarily taking it in the same way because like you know right you the the transition from 11 to 12 is significant.
00:02:14
Speaker
the transition from 10 to 11 is significant. like You are just constantly learning new stuff and plugging new things. You're still a smart little cookie. like You are a human being who is developing, but you're starting to like notice more and more and more that's outside of your scope. So when this came out,
00:02:32
Speaker
everybody I knew saw it and everybody I knew was like talking about it, like not just like, oh, it was so cool because of special effects and that of course was a conversation yeah and like how hot Trinity was and how hot Keanu Reeves was. Obviously. Obviously. It was about Whoa, isn't that crazy? Yeah. And like Truman Show, I think was another movie that had that kind of effect too. Yeah. And so it was just like, Oh my God. And that was 98. So that came out a year before Matrix. So we were like in this, Oh my God.
00:03:06
Speaker
moment where we were realizing like, oh, movies can make you think it's not just entertainment, like gangs or entertainment, fun like dumb act, like action can be smart. It can be smart. And it is like a metaphor, you know, and like all these different things that are packed into it. And as we got older, and like we're in high school,
00:03:24
Speaker
We're still being affected by it because the sequels are coming out and like we're still continuing to talk about it and like, what does it mean? and Where is it going? And then like, okay. At a certain point because I do want to give the Wachowski sisters their their flowers. They created this incredible, incredible story and it holds up. It definitely holds up. Yeah, it does. But my attention was a little bit more diffuse because I've watched it so many times.
00:03:52
Speaker
since I was 12 years old. It's been a minute. yeah It's so interesting, like you said, about it coming out at this sort of critical time for people our age because I do feel like that sort of age, you know that adolescent kind of middle school is also when people suddenly start expecting you to have an opinion about the some the stuff that you saw.
00:04:20
Speaker
You know, it's like the development of like your take, like your thoughts, your taste is starting to develop at that age. And so some a movie like this coming out for people in our generation that was so different to what we had expected and had a lot of fresh ideas. It was just like the the cultural impact of The Matrix cannot be, I think, overstated in pop culture. There are so many quotes from this movie that someone could just like say like a one-line and you'd instantly know what they're talking about, what they're referencing. Oh my god, like there's just so many things, like obviously the whole concept of being red-pilled came from this movie. It is so painful that
00:05:11
Speaker
Cause like, and anybody can correct me, right? Because there's a lot to take from the Matrix series. The creators, the Wachowski sisters are these trans women, trans creators, who I believe part of, if not all of the Matrix, there is like ah an allegory or like a,
00:05:31
Speaker
yeah like an undercurrent of the trans like experience and transformation like that is a part of the story and I always kind of like knew that because we were aware as these things were changing and as the Wachowski sisters were transitioning and they were choosing to focus more on in their storytelling and all these different things like the conversation was happening so we were exposed to that conversation and having those conversations and it felt like such a fuck you betrayal when all of these absolute sorry this is gonna be explicit shitbags of human beings started to like co-opt this whole red pill and It's so disappointing when people that just have no business liking something cool, like something cool. When they make it their whole personality. I know. It's just like, you are sad. You are just, and you know, there are people who talk about like facing certain horrible people with kindness, whatever, sorry, that's not me. No, me neither. That's not who I am.
00:06:40
Speaker
point of my existence or at my core. It was so angering. And like we saw that all coming up through like the Bush administration and and onward and onward and onward. And it was just like, you absolute dirtbags. I You are looking straight at the point and missing it. The forest for the trees, like just 100%. You saw something yeah that you thought was cool.
00:07:04
Speaker
and you you grabbed onto one part of a metaphor and like you couldn't even you couldn't even take it all in. you know it's like it It goes back to the previous conversation. I think it might have been from our first episode that like this film is very critical of like fascism, fascist ideas in a lot of ways, and like the people who co-opted the red pill phrase,
00:07:31
Speaker
are fascist. They are fascist. They think they're Morpheus. They are Agent Smith. 100%. It's so amazing. Absolutely in our first episode about um stormtroopers and the Empire and people yeah totally being like, you just ah they don't get... it's like i i don't Is it comforting to know that people don't change? I don't know. Is that it's that good?
00:07:58
Speaker
I mean, it's really disappointing to see cognitive dissonance just spread like a plague. And that's definitely what we've been able to witness. So it is it is interesting seeing it now, you know, with all of this, like, cultural impact that this that this film has had. Also, talking about cultural impact.
00:08:15
Speaker
in the past few years, because we're recording in 2024. So 2018 and onward, I was looking at some articles like this, again, just to introduce to anybody who might have jumped into this podcast as I was listening to any of our past conversations. This is research light. There is some research done, but it is very Very much on the surface. Yeah. We're talking Wikipedia. We're talking IMDB. We're talking the first page of Google results. I'm talking maybe um fashion online magazines or blogs. You know, those things are being added. I do have one book for today. Oh, shoot.
00:08:53
Speaker
I mean, talk about scholarly. Okay. Academia. yeah Let me dust off my little mortarboard hat. like Just flip that tassel to whichever side you choose. um Yeah, I just looked at a couple articles because I was like looking for some specific little bits of information from the costume designer, like quotes, and that was pretty cool. But there was a lot of conversation about, um yeah, the fashion impact and like where things came from, what was happening around, you know, Y2K, Y2K. Oh my God, we're gonna talk, we gotta get into it with Y2K. What a time. The children need to know. Well, I don't know if you've seen this. Sorry, we're gonna date ourselves so hard in this episode. But there's this like amazing TikTok where this woman like turns the camera on her 12 or 13-year-old daughter and is like, can you say, can you just tell the camera what you told me? And the little girl's like, ugh.
00:09:49
Speaker
Okay, well you just asked me like what I'm wearing and I was telling you that it's like the Y2K style and you just wouldn't get it. It would take like too long to explain to you what Y2K is and then turns the camera back on herself and she's like, she said, I wouldn't get it. And I was like, that's me too. Oh my God. That was horrible because I was coming up through Y2K as well, just really quick. So fashion impact. Yes, Y2K, there was a lot of stuff going into that that was like,
00:10:18
Speaker
multiple places were um um impacting this and there are a lot of places we can reach Asia and like those, justt like just everywhere, right? And we can even go back to the eighties with some of this. But in 2018, 2019 and like beyond until now, it has been a fashion trend to have this stupid tiny sunglasses again. Oh, the tiny sunglasses. And like listen, we all have our own tastes. When I say something is stupid, that is solely the opinion of myself. And it's just a tactile visual thing that I don't enjoy. And so it doesn't mean that you're dumb if you like it or that you wear it. I just wouldn't i just don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's like fanny packs for the face.
00:11:03
Speaker
I don't like it. Did you have any tiny sunglasses? Absolutely not. I went the opposite direction. I went full Jackie-O. Oh my God. Full Jackie-O aviator sunglasses, like just 80s style. I had a pair of blue lens rimless, tiny sunglasses about this time that this movie came out. I don't have any photographic proof or evidence that they existed, just the memories in my heart. Just the sweet, sweet memories. I do feel like I've been very cruelly excluded from a lot of sunglass culture by having to wear regular glasses. And it has severely limited my ability to hop on really terrible sunglass trends. Yeah, because it has to be very intentional. Yeah, but I did have those tiny, they were like baby blue colored lenses. I have a no thank you perspective on tiny sunglasses.
00:12:05
Speaker
And all of the like vinyl, ah PVC, leather, pleather that is in this movie were so deeply impactful. And I feel like a lot of people who are coming up at the end of the 90s, definitely throughout the 90s, throughout the 80s, throughout the 70s, every decade, and we always have folks who gravitate to leather. Absolutely. But I feel like there was this very specific shiny leather vibe that was coming up at the end of the 90s into the early 2000s where folks would go to high school decked out in like these plastic things with the tiny sunglasses. And it's like, okay.
00:12:45
Speaker
but We're 14. I need you to dial it down a minute. like Be who you are. I love that for you. But it was also not just clothing. It was like an attitude like, oh, I've broken out of the matrix. It was like, oh, yeah. yeah yeah okay All of a sudden, like every single person was like, I know. I'm Neo. I'm the woman. I'm not part of the system. And it was like, oh my god. We were already experiencing emo. Of course we had goth kids. We had like all the normal varieties of you know culture rejection and like growth, all that stuff and like alternative personalities, all that stuff. But this just like took it to another level.
00:13:31
Speaker
It really did. Did your school have a group of kids who wore long black trench coats? A hundred percent. Mine definitely did. One hundred percent. And it's funny because like there was some crossover in those kids where there was like the otaku like anime. Oh yeah. Intense personalities, band kids slash theater kids. And then like sort of like metal don't talk to me kids. And I feel that that when mar metal kids were into other stuff like the really does sit at the nexus of all of that those things. So like it makes perfect sense. but if you feel like an outsider, then you're like, ooh, this speaks to me in a certain way, you know, like it totally, and then you can follow that rabbit hole as far as you want. But like, oh my God, this was so influential that like watching it feels like going back to high school, which is why I think, cause this like, yes, we were 12, but it was right at that like threshold yeah of, you know,
00:14:33
Speaker
And the sequels, yeah, though those sequels were coming out like in yeah high school for us. So it was a long, it was this and The Lord of the Rings. Those things were like so influential for that chunk of time. yeah And so you were either Little Hobbit or...
00:14:50
Speaker
if There was the matrix. Were you like a slick, like dipped in pattern, leather, PVC? Let me see. Were you like skipping through a field with a little cloak on? And of course, this is a gross exaggeration, but these two things were hugely influential. And so maybe that's why I have such a response to the tiny sunglasses is because it feels like back in high school and I can't yeah take it seriously.
00:15:18
Speaker
because I've seen too many teenagers trying to do it. And i did I did find out a cool thing about those sunglasses. And um I also had a little note that like I don't like tiny sunglasses. The only ones that I don't dislike are the ones that Lawrence Fishburne wears in this movie.
00:15:37
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And they also remind me of Gary Oldman's in Bram Stoker's Dracula, which are, of course, more Victorian. So they're a different shape, but they're so tiny. But like, yeah, the Kardashians and Bella Hadid and all these people who are like super famous have been bringing back all of this style since about 2018, 2019. Yeah. They've been wearing a lot of leather, like And they abandoned the skinny jeans, like, pretty early. And the teeny, teeny, teeny tiny sunglasses. My only objection to that is that they've been behaving as if they created it. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, exactly. Like, respect what came before you. Wachowski sisters and this designer for this movie. Miss Kim Barrett. Kim Barrett, I believe, have some responsibility for this. How dare you. Yeah, I did have my own moment with that though like when I was in college and that's when this sort of cigarette pant skinny jean thing was really going strong and and I really like that style so I was wearing it a lot and I was working for a designer who was considerably older than me and And she made a joke about, oh, like your generation thinks that you guys invented the skinny jeans, but like I was there the first time. And, you know, like that's the thing about fashion. It is cyclical. It's cyclical. And that's just how it is, especially the 20th century. It borrows from different things and there are little changes, all those things. And so it's like, yes, I am becoming the old man.
00:17:16
Speaker
but it is just like now we're in a place where we're wearing everything. Pick your silhouette and go for it. Pick your silhouette, pick your decade, pick whatever movie you want to be influenced by. Because of our access to the internet, I think that that's why I have more of a frustration is because we came up with the internet. So we came up with access to knowledge about all these different things. And we had so many movies at our fingertips that like we had exposure to so much cultural history, like pop cultural history, its etc. so true So when people now take claim for something, it's like a quick Google search says no, you know, it's like, just Just say, we're hearkening back to this and growing off of it. like It's not going to hurt you to have full context here. Whereas when people are like, I was there for the you know the the skinny jeans in the 1950s. Great. That's good for you.
00:18:14
Speaker
I'm so happy. And like every generation is gonna put a little twist and you know they're gonna style it a little differently. They're using materials that they have so like you know we have much more access to like stretchy fabrics than in the past so like we can cut things a different way. We can do things like every everyone's putting their little spin, their little twist on it. But yeah, i I there's no reason to not know where something came from, even if it doesn't affect anything about what you do. It's like having the knowledge is never bad. It's always good to know. And it's also like it's not bad to be referential to know like it's not a bad thing. OK, so there is one thing that I want to I mean,
00:19:01
Speaker
I don't think that we're going to like go through the whole plot of the Matrix necessarily. We're going to like talk it through, but we're not necessarily going to like lay it out. Oh, yeah. I don't i don't think that's... I mean, if anyone... Imaginary hair flip. Yeah. like If there's anyone here that has no idea what the Matrix is, I'm kind of confused about why you're listening to us talk about it.
00:19:22
Speaker
um But I do think that you should go, this is mandatory viewing for the 21st century. You need to go see it. I'm so sorry. Please return to this in an hour and 45 minutes after you've watched the movie. It inspired so much. The performances are great. It was so well-cast. The physical ah performances were so cool and like the the effects were awesome. and this was you were groundbreaking They were groundbreaking. And this was that around the time like um Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was coming out. And so it's like we were getting this like Asian cinema that had these cool
00:20:01
Speaker
ah flying martial arts sequences and like slowed down things. Like it was like coming to the American audience like these yeah styles that obviously had already existed but like were not sort of mainstream in America yet like only the like cool like indie cinephiles were really on top of all of that stuff. So it was like it blew everyone's minds because we didn't know about it. It was so incredible. All right, so I have ah like a couple little things to just hammer out of the way. So in my notes, I said, hey, cell phone. like Oh, the cell phone is amazing. Every single phone we see in this movie is just like, whoa.
00:20:48
Speaker
It's incredible. Such a flip. A little note on the sunglasses because I've been harping on them forever. Yes. All of those were custom made. They were custom made, hand built by um a designer who had to make them himself. And he made all these like plaster casts past of um the actor's heads so that he could specifically make them fit. So like the Lawrence Fishburne ones that do not have arms.
00:21:13
Speaker
they just rest on his nose because that's how good at making sunglasses this person was. Yeah, that was um Richard Walker of you Line Design. Yeah, I think that was an incredible choice rather than going with pre-made, you know, massively available sunglasses. Like the glasses in this movie are so iconic to the overall look of the movie. And so I'm really glad that they that they took that extra like care to have them all custom-made, incredible choice. and The shoes, did you read about the shoes as well? oh like A tiny bit, but please tell me. so Any shoes, because there were so many foot close-ups, especially in fight sequences, so many of the shoes had to be designed by Kim Barrett, the designer for the movie, and they were custom-made.
00:22:06
Speaker
There was a lot of thought that went into a lot of the shoes because a lot of the concept for the clothing that was worn by the characters outside of the Matrix, so in the real world, so much of the thinking behind it was reuse and like sustainability and like the clothes would just be handed down and handed down and handed down, which is why they look so torn up. And some of them are in good quality, but some have been mended and like distressed. But it's like even the shoes, even for the one, Neo himself, all of the things that he wears come from somebody else probably.
00:22:40
Speaker
And I'm like, that's pretty cool, like that much thinking and planning. As a designer that you can have the ability to be like, yeah, we have to custom make some shoes so that there's like for these close ups that are going to be super close that there's no like really recognizable soles or labels that we can't get out of rubber. Like we have to do some pretty cool stuff. But I just thought that the the specific places where they applied custom making things was really well thought out and clever. And I also had um a Mandela effect, a heavy Mandela effect with this movie. Neo's jacket. Oh, I had the exact same thing. ok I know what you're about to say. And I had the exact same thought. just It just automatically in my head. I just imagine Neo's coat being leather. Uh-huh. Yeah, obviously it is, right? Nope. It's a lightweight, flippin' wool. And like you see the movie and you go, oh yeah, that is definitely not leather. So it's like, I wonder if later on in one of the other sequels, we start to get like shinier or leathery things. That is a good question. We wrote our memory because the silhouette
00:23:54
Speaker
of these long dusters, these long black coats is just like so burned into my visual memory. It's like billowing hemlines of these full coats, just incredible. It's amazing how like you just like slap a coat on somebody and you could make it a Western. You slap a coat on somebody and you could make them almost seem like dancers. And that's what I think happened in this movie, is that when the coats had skirts and got longer and longer and longer, they really emphasized the movement.
00:24:30
Speaker
And so they were like drapey and they didn't feel heavy. now And so they kind of like emphasized when, you know, post Neo finding out about the Matrix existing and that like learning about and growing into becoming the one when they go back into the Matrix and like he now has all his fighting skills and all this stuff and they're like ready to fight all of the Smiths. Can't wait to talk about the Smiths.
00:24:54
Speaker
They're like so moving outside of time and outside of the Matrix and the coats and like all the different styles that they're wearing kind of like emphasize that because they're just like swaying and moving in different ways. I don't know. it's It was really a cool choice. Now this episode is going to be all over the flipping place.
00:25:14
Speaker
That's mostly my fault. I do feel like yeah, no, it's I think that's okay I feel like all of my notes for this movie are like that Chris Farley character from SNL where he's like interviewing people and he's just like remember when you jumped a hundred feet through the air across the building and then you landed like it was nothing that was awesome like All of my notes are just like wow. This is so cool. I love this. This is cool over and over and I have very little ah I have no smart thoughts. I have very little like coherent thoughts about this movie. So I have a couple I won't claim them to be smart thoughts but I was like okay you have to make actual observations at some point like I had to force myself not because I wasn't enjoying the watch but because I'm it's like it's such a it's almost like one of those comfort movies that you put on because you've seen it so many times that it's like no no no you have to actually like Look at things and use your thinking brain. We have the two worlds We have the matrix which looks like the world we know where there's like corporate jobs And you're kind of like unhappy and you live your new apartment and you like hustle and bustle in the city you Hustle and bustle in the city you hustle online and make relationships online you go partying to like release tension and all that kind of stuff and then there is the real world which is not in a the year 1999, which is where we think we are existing in this movie. It is instead potentially closer to 2199, as Lawrence Fishburne's character explains it. That's because these like alien creatures, alien robotic creatures, AI. Excuse you, artificial intelligence, chat GPT, Skynet. so sorry. I'm so sorry. Scarlett Johansson from the film Her.
00:27:06
Speaker
Not ScarJo.
00:27:10
Speaker
Oh, heavy shame, heavy shame, heavy shame. Excuse me. Artificial intelligence feature overlords. The world has been taken over by AI, shall we say, with no mistakes. I didn't at all mistakenly say anything. No, not at all. But this is in a distant future in which humans are being used essentially as batteries to power the AI. And the world has been scorched, the sky has been burned in the war between the humans and the AI. And the humans lost. And so they are now being harvested. I did appreciate that Lawrence Fishburne was like, we do know that the humans are the ones that scorched the sky. And I was like, that tracks. That sounds right. He's like, that one, that's on us. That was on us.
00:27:54
Speaker
We thought that we would kill the, because the AI at that point was like solar powered. So we were like, if we destroy the planet, and therefore there's no like sunshine, then the AI will die. And it was sort of like, for what? My comrades? like So when they flashed to that sky, I was like, whoo, placing us heavy in 1999, because that looked like a sky from the never ending story. Oh my God. And Falcor should have been coming through those clouds. Yeah. I was just like, whoa, took me out for a second. So there's a few computer images in this movie that were sort of like, oh, hi, I have time. Time has passed. Yeah, time has passed. Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
So we have these two worlds. It was interesting to read on IMDB. There are like two quotes from Kim Barrett on her page. And one of them is about Neo's coat not being leather. And she's like, sorry, guys, it was wool. I don't know what you're remembering. And then the second one, I mean, it's not as rude as that. but The second one is about in the world of The Matrix, they there was an agreement, like design wise, that there would be no blue. So there is no blue in The Matrix. Everything you see is tinged with green. And so even the white of like white shirts or any white you see,
00:29:11
Speaker
uh was put into dye baths of green and i was like oh this is the level of detail i love to talk about i know show i'm so glad we're finally getting to like the point in movie history where we have like direct quotes from the designers to be like tell me everything tell me all the little bits and it's such a relief to go to imdb and see this massive crew, like listed. Not just a designer, but a team is listed and it's awesome. So everything in the Matrix is tinged green. And it was funny because I was watching it.
00:29:44
Speaker
And it feels like there are some blues. And I think that some of that is just colors working with each other, but that they really did try to stick away from blues. But also there's so much black. There are so many black suits. And when you're working with a black fabric, black is a combination of multiple colors, right? It's not just like a straight up natural color. So when you are looking at a black fabric, you'll often see especially as things get washed or as they get older, they'll turn browner or a bluer because most of the blacks that you see, ah the dye composition is usually blue based or brown based. And so in this movie, it felt like most of them were blue based. There is like a blue tinge when you're like really thinking about it.
00:30:28
Speaker
it seems like it's more of like your eyes kind of seeing that like out of the black. And it's also like a combination of greys and that like sickly green kind of coming together. When you're in the world of reality where these like squid AI sentinels are like constantly trying to track down the Nebuchadnezzar which is the ship that they are like hovercrafting in. Like through yeah through the sewers, scorched sewers. It is, it's almost like relaxing for your eyes while still being totally harsh because like in the matrix, there's that tinge of green, there's all this black and white, and there's like beiges, there's all these colors that make you feel like uneasy uneasy and it makes it feel like color has been sucked from the world. And when you think
00:31:15
Speaker
when you finally are like oh this is a computer program it's like oh the ai are like saving memory almost by like not implementing all the colors like they're saving memory what in this giant computer program that they're running Oh, that's such a fascinating take on it. I love that. That is a smart thought. ok Thank you so much. I'm just going to call this massive amounts of hair that I have over my shoulder because of the hair clip. Thinking about it that way is just like, oh, that's pretty cool because it's like it's all so tight and uniform that if it was a computer program, you would all be seeing exactly what the computer program is making you see. right so like They have control over
00:32:01
Speaker
the color spectrum. And so that's why it's so so shocking every time you see red, yeah and it's not dulled down. Because when we're in the ah the Oracle's apartment, like in the middle of the movie, when Neo is brought there, um I like that I say a character named for one actor, and I say the actor named for the other actor. So when Neo's brought there by Lawrence Fishburne,
00:32:24
Speaker
to see if he is the one. Her kitchen, her costume are all green based. But over her refrigerator are these like, they're not necessarily plates. They might be those like baskets that you put paper plates in. I think that's what they were because I had like a like a deep like this slash back to those just being in our kitchen. And just like knowing the exact feel of those. And so there's like, I think some orange, maybe a little bit yellow, but there are a few red ones. So they're like red details throughout the world and I didn't watch it with enough of like a focus to see if there was like a way to track the red and see if that. There's also the woman in the red dress and there's the training simulation and their cipher when you get into the Yes. So when you see these colors that are not cool colors, because yeah, it's like green based in the matrix, then it's kind of blue and neutral based in the real world because think about it, right? This is like in the future. It's still in the distant future because today it's 2024 and this would be 2199 maybe. Who would be harvesting or creating dyes? Nobody. No way. You are solely trying to survive. So all the clothes that you have
00:33:35
Speaker
it feels like in the real world where it is like whites and beiges and grays and blues, it feels like they're kind of mixing in with their environment. Like those are pretty metallic, non-organic necessarily colors when combined together. So when they're inside the whole of the Nebuchadnezzar,
00:33:57
Speaker
They kind of could, if they needed to hide, disappear a little bit. Right. Like if they were in like a bright, you know, like neon color, you can't hide. It would super stand out. And so when we get introduced, when Neo wakes up in the real world, and he has been picked up by the Nebuchadnezzar crew, we go, you know, camera.
00:34:17
Speaker
one by one, looking at all the crew members who are standing around him. And we hit Cypher, Joe pants himself, Joe Pantiliano. And he's wearing a cutoff red sweater over some other layers. He's the only one of the crew who is wearing something that is not white, beige, gray, or blue.
00:34:38
Speaker
at that time. And immediately in my notes, I was like, are we following Star Trek redshirt rules here? I was thinking more like Judas and yeah like like Biblical. Totally. it's It's a highlight. It's like a Sims diamond over his head. It's like this is the guy that you got to look out for because he's the one who stands out. And when you connect that to the Lady in Red, who Neo sees in a simulation where he's like being taught Not to get distracted. Not to get distracted and to remember that he's in a computer program and he can manipulate it. One of the programs walks by him and she's in this like, she's almost like a hyper Marilyn Monroe figure. Yeah, she's very pin-up. Gorgeous felt pin-up lady in this beautiful dress. Beautiful blonde. Yeah. And very striking.
00:35:25
Speaker
And so Joe Pantaleano's character, Cypher, is the one who is the Judas. He betrays everyone so that he can go back to the Matrix and forget. He wants to forget that he knew the truth because the truth is bleak, man. The truth is painful. It's really depressing. It's super depressing. There is no future. Hope is really, really, like, their hope is that Keanu Reeves is going to wake up and have superpowers, basically. And like, leave them. And like half of the people don't believe it.
00:35:55
Speaker
How many people don't believe it? Because it's like they're living in a very serious reality in which they are being harvested by AI. Why would you think that something magical is going to happen? ah Like where someone has been like shaped by the machine to destroy the machine? Like what are you even talking about? And like we'll get in, the you know, if you watch the sequels though, they will get into it maybe more than you could ever want to know. it definitely worth you More than you could ever comprehend. Yeah, his character, Cypher, is just like, well, Cypher isn't a Cypher, a mystery. Cypher is like a um coded mystery. So there we go. But um he basically just wants to rewrite his own history and live well inside the Matrix. So he sells everybody out to the Smiths. So yeah, just like seeing him at first- The band, the Smiths. The band of the Smiths. In this gothic world, we're going to have goth you all. He's highlights so fast. That choice to put Cypher in that red is really strong, but it's also like the calibration of color is so finely tuned that he stands out
00:37:07
Speaker
But he still belong like the the particular shade of that red and the way that it is used is still very delicate. like the The Lady in Red simulation is like a hot fire engine red. And his is just toned down enough that if you don't pick up on it, you don't pick up on it. you know yeah It's perfectly, yeah, it's it's just really nice, delicate,
00:37:36
Speaker
balance of something that will jump out at you and be like, that's different, why is that different? But at the same time, I'm sure there's plenty of people that never picked up on that and never would. So it's like perfect, like good, excellent, good choice. It hides in plain sight. And so it's just like, oh, from the get go, you're telling us that something is different about him. All of the costumes, the language of the costumes in each world, there's such a tight color palette on both. Absolutely. It's so restricted. Yeah, it's so washed out, but it still feels really clean. Nothing feels dirty. Yes, everything in the house. Everything is hyper clean. Yeah, and that was something that I was really going with. Even within the Matrix, there's this really interesting balance of this sleek modern world and this corporate. But then there's also these really grimy, grungy little corners of the world. That seems to be where our crew goes when they go in the Matrix. They go into the grimy little corners where things are dirty and run down.
00:38:42
Speaker
and are like remnants of an old generation, an old world. So that was something that i I think I paid more attention to that this time, because so much of what we see in The Matrix is this sort of sleek high rise, men in black, men in suits, agents, but then there are these like grimy little corners, but they they work together in a really organic way that is still so different from like the real world scenes in the movie. Like the high rise, shiny, corporatey areas feel like where the program is exerting most of its energy. And then, yeah, like the the grimier or older or more falling apart places, the ruins, those feel like where the program isn't trying as hard. Yeah. And so the crew are able to sneak in and out of those places a little bit better because there are holes in the program.
00:39:32
Speaker
And so like they can act kind of like viruses and come and go a little bit easier And I just like I love that visual language so much going even a little bit deeper into it when Neo is in his corporate ah office He's wearing a suit. Was it like a brown suit?
00:39:49
Speaker
I couldn't tell if it was really washed out black or if it was brown. so so it's like it doesn't It's not like it's ill-fitting, but it's not tailored. but He dresses like he's a guy who's trying to just dress for work. like He bought a couple suits that are just fine, but there's no personality to them. There's nothing unique about them, but they are very like it's very clean.
00:40:11
Speaker
And then when we see him in his own apartment, he's wearing more relaxed clothing. Maybe it's the same pants, but it's just like a t-shirt. It's a loose t-shirt, but there's no like ripping. There's no iconography on it. There's nothing personal. It's just like more like a tactility like where it's a little bit more comfortable fabric. right But it's like shirt. There's nothing. it's just There's nothing. And even there's a later point where he meets up with Trinity and a couple other of our folks when they are going to debug him. yeah They have him in this really cool car and he's wearing yeah a t-shirt, a jacket, some pants. There's nothing really to write home about them. They're all very neat. They're very clean.
00:40:54
Speaker
And so he has this way of dressing in The Matrix before he's like fully aware that he can control it or of the other world. He just fits in. It's like he's just yeah hosting. As a character, he's just... He's like an NPC. He's an NPC. That's exactly what he is. He's an NPC. He just casually fits in. And he's constantly looking outward, which is what makes him like a perfect target to to stand out.
00:41:22
Speaker
um, as somebody who is like looking for an answer for more, um, because he's like a hacker. And so he's like, you know, weaving in and out of like polite understandings of what you're supposed to do in society, but he's not really exerting a lot of um energy on defining what he looks like. That's not really important to him until he steps into the real world. And he like,
00:41:47
Speaker
starts to grow his hair again after you know he's been plucked from his like harvest cocoon. His creepy gooey pod. All the plugs and like all of those wounds start to heal. All of that is so awesome and so horrible. like The body horror of it is so real.
00:42:07
Speaker
But he like starts to grow into himself. So when he starts stepping back into the Matrix after going out into the real world and learning more about himself and about humanity, he starts to make more decisions about who he is in the world. And he makes more decisions about his outward appearance.
00:42:25
Speaker
And so it's kind of interesting to see him not only step into his power by downloading all of these like fight techniques in martial arts um and like being in the dojo and like getting his ass handed to him by Lawrence Fishburne. He's also being present in his body, I think, in a way that he wasn't before. You know, he was just a cog. He was an NPC, so he didn't really like seem to care. And I make that statement because when he's in his apartment right after he gets the message, follow the white rabbit, somebody knocks on the door and they're there to pick something up from him. And they're like, we see like mohawks. We see like awesome jewelry. We see tattoos. We see all these people who are putting a lot of effort.
00:43:06
Speaker
into how they display themselves. It's just pretty nothing. He's just a guy. And then he becomes the one, now all of a sudden he's got like more tight fitting clothes because like he's thinking about how he can interact with the clothing with fighting and moving through the world. He's got the very drapey coat that feels kind of cape-like, you know? Right. It's still utilitarian stuff, but there is clearly some personality happening. Yeah, there's ownership to it. And so it's functional, but it's also like you can tell that it makes him feel a type of way. Yeah. Whereas everything else was just filling a need before.
00:43:49
Speaker
I did notice, I don't know that I had ever really noticed it before, but the scene at towards the beginning um when he's still unaware in The Matrix, and but he gets picked up by Agent Smith and they're interrogating him in that room. There's one shot that's like shot over Keanu Reeves shoulder so you can like see his shoulder and part of his arm in the foreground and you're looking but you're looking at Agent Smith but you can see that his button-up shirt has like dryer wrinkle like set in dryer wrinkles. I don't think I ever noticed that before but it was so perfect because it's like
00:44:33
Speaker
The most minimal amount of effort was made to look how I'm supposed to look at work, but I don't take the time to iron my shirt. And I also don't pay anyone else to take the time to iron the shirt. Like, the shirt's clean. What do you want from me? It's just like the most basic function. He's just like following the rules of that world. In the rules of that world, he's just a guy.
00:44:55
Speaker
Just the guy. And so every decision, he's just a little guy and that's how he makes his choices where he's not like, and I don't blame him. When he's still on the phone with moreph Morpheus and Morpheus is like talking him through like, okay, go out onto the ledge, go over to the like window washing thing and like go up. And when Kiana was like, no, like i I can't, it's totally irrelevant. But I like what Morpheus says to him on the phone. He says, you take a chance either way. yeah The choice is yours. The choice is yours.
00:45:25
Speaker
And it's like, I like the way that the characters communicate all of these things, where it can feel so annoying to have omniscient characters. And like you do get a little bit of that irritation through this movie, because there are people who are like, oh, you're just such a sweet bean. And he's like, could you just answer a single question? And you're like, I'm with you, man.
00:45:48
Speaker
But they just answer a single question. And people are like talking almost poetically like over and around him and because he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He's just a little guy. He's just a little baby girl. It is so nice to go back and watch Hugo Weaving as Mr. Smith because the first time I ever encountered Hugo Weaving was Priscilla Queen of the Desert. And I love Hugo Weaving as a performer. I mean, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix series as Mr. Smith, V for Vendetta. Come on now, which is also Wachowski.
00:46:28
Speaker
Oh, God, of course. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that one, ah I highly recommend if anybody hasn't seen that one. It's it's good. Just watch it. Okay. Just watch it. So the Smiths, as we casually refer to the band, um the Mr. Smith have their own uniform, which is so, it kind of feels like it goes beyond the Men in Black vibe.
00:46:52
Speaker
I would agree. Because like it takes that as like a ground level when you think of like G men, right? Men in black. The feds. Yeah. The feds. Because, and it was great because Phil was walking through the room when I when i was watching like the beginning and he said exactly what I was thinking.
00:47:08
Speaker
But I want to give him the credit, which is, it's so cool the way that sunglasses are used in this movie because you can't you cannot see people's eyes. It's very deliberate. And like with the Smiths, you can't see their eyes and it gives uniformity to them being not human. the faceless. They're faceless. Yeah. but I mean, they do have faces, but they don't make expression the same way. They don't. Mr. Smith. Yeah. They don't express any emotion in their voice, in their face. Mr. Smith starts to break away from his initial programming. And you see that because there, I think there are times when his glasses get ripped off. There are a couple. Yeah. Yeah. And then he starts to make more facial expressions because it's getting personal for him.
00:47:54
Speaker
and you start hearing his voice like change. So he's, you see the break away from the programming because it's personal now. It's not just like, this is my function. It's not just business. It's not just business. It's that this doesn't make sense the way that it was supposed to make sense. It's kind of like Javert and Jean Valjean. He's like the Javert where he's just like, this is the system that I was told and taught was right. And you are breaking all of those rules and I would rather live in nothing than live in a world in which the rules can be broken.
00:48:25
Speaker
AKA fascism. A little bit of fascism, a little casual name is Rob. The Smiths, the G-Men uniform of the suit, the tie bars. The tie bars. They're so precisely measured to be at the same place. You know somebody was there with a ruler. 100% that was somebody's job. The ear coils are so specific. That's the perfect little landline cord, yeah.
00:48:47
Speaker
And so they're just like so specifically identical that they are, especially cause the color palette being that like kind of sickly beigy and gray yeah black combination. They are just like unsettling. They all kind of like look the same. Like they have very similar facial features. They're all hair style. Exactly the same. Yeah. They're all hoei to men. Hoei to men.
00:49:13
Speaker
The worst group that you could ever be part of. Just walking down an alley at night and having three of those guys. It's like opting out of that immediately. Because like we're either being dragged to Bohemian Grove or like straight up being harvested as a human battery. Like there's just no in between. No good way out of the situation.
00:49:35
Speaker
I have like some some random little observations that are not just about the men. So Trinity, let's talk about Trinity. Oh God, okay. Do we have like- One of your impressions of Ms. Ma'am. I love Trinity deeply. I love that She one of my pet peeves with a lot of movies of this type and genre I think I'm gonna agree with whatever it is you're about to say and I'm really excited about it is the overwhelming need by certain movies to Make their female characters wear as little clothing as possible well while doing the same amount of action and fighting as their male
00:50:21
Speaker
contemporaries and it doesn't make sense. I hate it. It is a huge thing that will just immediately make me angry when I'm watching a movie. I don't i think one of the most egregious examples that always sticks in my mind is the movie version of The Watchman. Oh.
00:50:45
Speaker
ah So I love Trinity because ah she is wearing clothing. She's wearing clothing that allows her to do what her character needs to do. Carrie Ann Moss is absolutely stunning. Okay. I feel like I can trace back to a certain unlocking in my brain and realizing, oh, I can have a crush on anybody.
00:51:13
Speaker
yeah because Carrie Ann Moss was just like still now, oh yeah but like you believed that she was kicking ass. You believed yeah that she was doing all this and she did most of her stunts and you believed that she could do those stunts and that she could fight in what she was wearing. The only thing that I didn't think was believable was the fact that you couldn't hear the fabric going That is, yeah, the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of the PDC, like, okay. Some poor editor has just, like, turned that knob way down. All the sounds that all the fabric was making. There's just no way that it didn't sound.
00:51:54
Speaker
I would love to. Yeah, there has to be a cut up. I want to hear that. The all fabric swishing cut. Just pre-edit. Because it was just so noisy and like, come on, those like, pleather, whatever pants just had to be crazy. But she also, to add to what you're saying, she's never wearing heels. No.
00:52:16
Speaker
Why would you? And that is a that's a massive pet peeve to jump on what you started is that there are so many incredible opportunities for female characters that get just warped and you can see it. There there will be things where there's conversation about how limiting it is for women to fight from the male gaze. Like, um shoot, what was the I might be asking a very dumb question, but the Harley Quinn movie that came out a couple of years back Birds of prey. Birds of prey. So birds of prey has a really great bit that like definitely traveled its way through TikTok, et cetera, where one of the women who's fighting, they're in this massive fight scene and it's the women against all these horrible, horrible guys. Two of them have their hair down and one of them is stopping fighting. Like she's still kicking so that she can get a hair band and to put her hair back. And she offers one to another fighting woman who's like, Oh my God, thank you. yes And it's like, yes, because they always have women with super long, gorgeous hair or like crazy hairstyles. It's just like with it in their face, they can't see. It's a visibility issue. They're eating their own hair. Somebody could grab their hair, you know? like Oh my God. Yeah. It makes you vulnerable. It makes you super vulnerable. And so like Trinity has this like sleek,
00:53:37
Speaker
slicked back i mean my short hair. Her haircut in this movie that was just like so aspirational. No, no. 11 out of 10. My goodness, ma'am. And and like the number of times that it's just like fully slicked down to her scalp and it looks belong incredible her. It's incredible. The whole head to toe situation is just like chef's kiss. The thing that got me the most is like yes, she is sexy. She is showing skin. Undeniably. But she is functional. The things she's wearing are utilitarian. And they're things that you could see her liking because they make her feel powerful, but like she can still do what she has to do. And the fact that she's not wearing stilettos or some type of nonsense like that is just like, thank you, thank you, thank you. Because come on, we can be as aspirational as we want about high heels, but like you cannot.
00:54:35
Speaker
You cannot do in high heels what you can do when you have full stability for your feet. And I will take that to the grave, drastic world. That's what I was about to say. I was infuriated. And so it was a relief in this movie to look back to 1999 and go, nope, Trinity is a warrior. That is what she is. And people misuse that word all the time, but she is a fighter. And she she opens the movie and she sets that that opening scene in that movie, watching this in 1999, that opening fight sequence
00:55:13
Speaker
was just like jaw dropping. It was so cool. The the way it's shot, her i it it introduced bullet time oh yeah to the world in that moment. like and And she carried that scene so incredibly and so with such commanding presence. Like a dancer. like it was like she was dancing and that is when fight choreography I think is at its strongest is when it feels like a dance and like that's just how fluid she is as a performer physically speaking it was incredible it was also great because you have this like sting at the top where the smiths show up and there's just like cops hanging out and they're like
00:55:55
Speaker
why are you out here? And the cops were like, we got it. I sent in two officers. It's just one little girl. And the Smiths were like, blip, sorry to tell you, but your men are already dead. Already dead. They are already dead. That to me is when I like raise the girl power fist. It's like, yes, queen. Murdering these cops.
00:56:17
Speaker
Go girl. Get these bad men off your trail and go after those smiths. They are trouble. Also like a huge pet peeve of mine as a designer, when I have ah female characters that I'm supposed to be, you know, working with a team and like designing clothing for, I really hate it when anyone on the creative team comes to me and is like, we need her to be sexier because- Melinda,
00:56:47
Speaker
Because what that means, what that person is telling me to do is to take away her clothing. yeah Like at the end of the day, that is what they're asking me to do. Put her in less clothes. And I hate that so much. I could talk about this for like three hours. say no I know. There are a bunch of gigs that I've done that were primarily for dancers.
00:57:11
Speaker
First of all, everybody has a different understanding of what sexy is. A hundred percent. And, like, I have nothing against showing flesh. No, no, thing I'm fine with it. Do what you've got to do, what you want to do. I have nothing against that. Yeah, absolutely. But what is from a costumer's point of view, are you going to try to tell me?
00:57:32
Speaker
you have never seen someone in a diaphanous gown and been like, oh boy, are you going to tell me right now that Trinity herself is not sexy? Because she's not like, able to you know, she's not showing cleavage or something, therefore not sexy. She's had more relaxed. look She has more soft feminine looks, even in the real world, like the the distressed sweaters, all that stuff, the softer colors are a little bit more relaxed. Yeah, she is covered in the areas where you would traditionally reveal if you're trying to get sexier. but She is still
00:58:09
Speaker
bang, bang, bang, like, wow. well and he's out Yeah, but like, but like, are you gonna try to tell me that Princess Leia and her white dress in A New Hope isn't super sexy? Like, absolutely. Like, you don't, you want to see her in the gold bikini because you already know that she is sexy. Yes. and from the person no The context of why she's in that gold bikini, you know, yeah like, hold on conversation but it's like she established like she established herself I mean I don't know she's became a sex symbol before the gold bikini yes like that sent it into like the stratosphere of like nerd oh desire way into space but like it's like you can you can make somebody sexy by highlighting
00:58:53
Speaker
anything on that person. It does not require one technique. no And so that was always very frustrating for me working those jobs where it's like, especially if you're a dancer, which just applies to like how Trinity moves, right? Just like sweeping movements, like super flexibility, agility, all these things. yeah Gracefulness. If you have high slits in a long skirt that is very, very drapey, when you're moving and you're doing high kicks and you're doing all that stuff, hey friend,
00:59:22
Speaker
the reveal, the surprise, sometimes that can do it. So when it's solely take away the clothes, more heels take away the clothes, it's like the most frustrating thing in the world.
00:59:34
Speaker
It's also like, anno that the other issue that I have with this is sexiness, sexual appeal, desire comes from within you. It's something that you put out into the world. Oh, that's definitely true too. yeah And it doesn't, obviously we can use clothing to enhance that.
00:59:57
Speaker
But if you don't have that in yourself as the performer, there's nothing that I can do that is going to make that happen on stage or like on screen or whatever. Like yeah just having something revealing or tight or whatever for clothing doesn't make someone sexy. they But it certainly does objectify them. It does. It will do that real fast. So like Trinity as a character, she's she's smart, she's strong, she's confident, she's capable. She doesn't take any shit. like
01:00:33
Speaker
All of those things are added, like those are creating a person that you see that you're like, I want to be like that. I want to be near her. Like all of that stuff has nothing to do with what she's wearing at all. No. And it's like she could have been wearing pretty much anything and we would have been gifted with her presence. And we got to have the very shiny a vinyl things that there there is a quote somewhere that I read in passing from our costume designer talking about why and I'm not gonna be able to say it exactly because i don't know where the quote is but she was talking about why she dressed Trinity in super shiny oh here it is so this is a quote off of um the face calm an article about this. Kim Barrett, the costume designer of the original Three Matrix movies, says she went for, quote, very graphic silhouettes, end quote, with the flowing robes that Morpheus and Neo wear, a big part of the visual spectacle. Everything was considered character first. We've talked about that. It's totally true. Absolutely. Trinity wears reflective fabrics as an illusion because, quote, these people are moving through our world almost invisible. They blend in, but they also disappear between the two worlds.
01:01:51
Speaker
I just thought that that was such an interesting layer to it, that that the reflectiveness is kind of to like distract, make you just look at the clothes, not the person who's wearing the clothes. So it's like if the if all these people are, you know, spreading out through the matrix, they do stand out when you think of like how cyber goth they are, but you're also so taken aback by the sleekness and by the silhouette that you're not necessarily like, who is that? You're like, yeah you just kind of like what is what is that? yeah And so it is very
01:02:30
Speaker
It is like ah a really interesting way of using deception in costume. I also have a quote about Trinity from the ah book that I teased at the beginning of this episode. yeah um This is from the book Dressed, a Century of Hollywood Costume Design by Deborah Landis. I had lunch with her once.
01:02:50
Speaker
Oh, my God. I love this book. um So she has a quote. ah There's well, there's an incredible picture of of Trinity and and a costume rendering in the book, which I always love to see. But she has a quote from Kim Barrett. She's talking about the Wieckowski's and she says, they wanted Trinity to feel like an oil slick, slippery like a mercury like like she can slip through your fingers.
01:03:16
Speaker
Which is so cool. It's so cool. Because you don't really pick on that pick up on that necessarily because there's so much that unites our Nebuchadnezzar crew when they are in The Matrix, when they're functioning in this like super high quality cyberpunk-ish kind of fashion that you don't really necessarily look into why they're dressing that way. And so it is interesting to think of it as a form of camouflage and like to make them kind of, yeah, liquidy and like moving through the world and like switch who at face value you might immediately think is female, but I believe that that character was supposed to represent. I guess that that was a character that got kind of minimized through production. yeah It sounded like it started at a more explicit like message and kind of got washed out over yeah through studio notes. to death, which is like so dumb. it's I don't want these movies to be remade, but with information like that, you do wonder what it would look like if those things were altered today. yeah And so Switch, I did see a little thing about um towards the end of the movie when they come back into the Matrix to get Neo in.
01:04:27
Speaker
they're wearing all white and they're wearing all white because they are in the protector role. So it's like they stand out that way. I just kind of like loved that. Like they're wearing white and they're very like not feminine silhouette, not male silhouette, just very like fluid in that definition of the word fluid. And I i just really liked the attention to each character. So that even if we were using this like oil slick, that applies to Trinity, but it doesn't necessarily fully apply to the rest of them. Like the camouflage idea does apply to the rest of them, right but in different ways. Like they're they're exhibiting their personalities now.
01:05:10
Speaker
the way that they can't in the real world necessarily. Like, they can wear clothes. Like, when we see Morpheus on the Nebuchadnezzar, he's almost like a Jedi. Like, the way that he, when he first comes in after Neo has, like, been de-acupuncture-ed and all these things. Like, he has this very interesting shirt that I... Yeah, it's got this, like, kind of crossover. Yeah, it's like a crossover situation that I would kind of love. Like, he also looks handsome as hell. Like, everything he's wearing is just, like, super suited to him. But he totally looks like...
01:05:40
Speaker
like he's this like guide you know who's like here to train you and they they're wearing geese at one point like in the dojo the digital dojo there's there's so much that more academic folks would be able to like really you know ground into about like the asian influences that are kind of coming out of this and when i think of like the asian influences i'm thinking about the anime that i saw you know growing up in the 90s. I could see that leading to the looks that we're getting in The Matrix. I specifically, for some reason, I'm connecting it right now to Ghost in the Shell um in my head. I did see that listed as an influence somewhere. So there's a lot of this stuff that is cross-pollinating and being borrowed from and being inspired by it without feeling like it's
01:06:33
Speaker
abusing the source material or feeling like it's like taking advantage of or you know what I mean like or appropriating super hardcore like I'm sure that there are arguments that can be made about the geese in the dojo but there is purpose to that that isn't like trying to take away from kind of like that the the purity of spirit that you bring to like deliberate martial arts. It feels like like some of the earlier movies that we watched that sort of brought in different cultural references, it doesn't feel like anything in this movie was trying to be disguised or it didn't feel like there was any message of like, this is less than what we do. Exactly. Yeah. it it didn't feel It didn't feel that way. And I hope that that is the experience of everyone watching this movie that they don't feel that way. By all means, share with us because we would love to grow our knowledge and our perspective. It just surprisingly for something made in 1999 didn't scream the same way the other things we have seen do.
01:07:41
Speaker
Yeah. And like not something you can necessarily count on from that era. No. And um so to go to Kim Barrett, our lovely costume designer, what a CV. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. First movie listed as costume designer, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. So I knew, oh, so you shaped my youth. You just, you stuck your hand in my brain and you just switched it all around. Just to get into it, Romeo and Juliet, The Matrix, Titan AE, did you ever see that? I had that movie on VHS and I watched it so many times. I had the soundtrack and it was like,
01:08:25
Speaker
I would listen to that and I was like, look how hard I am. This is so cool. This is not spice rules. The kids at my school could never. Could never. Slipknot who? She also designed From Hell, The Hannah Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, Enter the Matrix Video Game, The Matrix Revolutions, Gothika. It is so cool how we have so much crossover here with video game and live action. It makes so much sense, yeah. It makes so much sense, like the knowledge that she's bringing to these different things like Romeo and Juliet. If you have not seen Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, I humbly ask you to do so. It is my favorite, one of my favorite.
01:09:10
Speaker
is another that is also my favorite Shakespeare adaptation. It's such a unique way to tell Shakespeare that now you will see more popularly done where it's putting it in more modern context and people are using more modern ways of speaking and dress and like circumstance to to explain the situation.
01:09:30
Speaker
And just being more like poetic and not having to be like, we're taking Shakespeare and we're putting it in this one year. It's like we're pulling whatever feels right. Yeah, it's not limited. There's music, the cinematography, all of these things combined in such a crazy, beautiful way. And like just the detail.
01:09:48
Speaker
that in Shakespeare, because during Shakespeare's time, people carried swords. So of course that's in the stories, right? Swords. Of course. They have swords, but the swords are guns. So the pistols say like a sword or something like on the side.
01:10:05
Speaker
So they they have like handguns, they have modern things that you would recognize, but they are referring to them contextually the way that you would refer to your weapon in the era that Shakespeare was writing. Like the detail is just so good and so crazy and I love it. And the costumes are so bonkers because they are like Miami on ecstasy. It's just nuts. And like what, what?
01:10:28
Speaker
What a beautiful piece of costuming. Like, oh, so awesome. I mean, there's I'm skipping a lot. yeah I mean, there's like there's so much. She worked with the Wachowski-Wachowski sisters. Is it Wachowski or Wachowski? That is such a good question that I don't know the answer to. I apologize, ladies, yeah if I am pronouncing it incorrectly, but I absolutely do respect because you are, even though not all of your works have hit for me, i.e. Jupiter Ascending, I can see how if you had been given the ability to make the full thing that you had, um yes intended that it could have been a different experience. And like honestly, for me and just what I like about art, I would much rather have someone take a strong point of view and just go for it to the nines than something like a middle of the road that doesn't have a point of view. Yes. like I would rather have something be an unsuccessful, beautiful mess that was really trying to do something. And I feel like you and I have to talk about it. in front of mics. We talked about doing a live watch. Like a watch along? Yeah, a watch along. And I think that might have to happen in the future, because Jupiter Ascending is this like visually stunning. It's like overwhelming. oh yeah Overwhelming experience that at times is like emotionally incoherent for me. ah But like with the context of knowing that the script was like massive,
01:12:02
Speaker
and had to be like I think it was intended to be a series and it was forced to fit into like the size of a Q-tip. It really was just like a disservice to what I'm assuming was a very very rich world and it became this kind of like crazy movie. So like the costumes in it though are crazy beautiful. Like there's there's a lot in there that's absolutely stunning. So that might be worth it one time. But like Kim Barrett has definitely had an impact, like a solid impact with her work. There's just like incredible stuff here. And the Matrix
01:12:41
Speaker
is just one of member of the iceberg yeah many things that just absolutely shaped a lot of people's imaginations and pop culture. There was one thing that jumped out at me that I was like, that is kind of fascinating that she worked on the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
01:13:02
Speaker
Huh. I was like, okay. Wow. yeah Yeah. Now I'm like, do I have to go back and like watch the opening and closing ceremonies again and like appreciate what she was bringing to the table? I think I do. I mean, slight aside here, but Mongolia's uniforms for the upcoming Olympics, have you seen those? Oh my god.
01:13:23
Speaker
The Olympics are not for me. I'm just going to say that. The Olympics are not for me. And that has nothing to do with this podcast. I pay zero attention. And so seeing these Mongolian uniforms, I'm just like, holy cannoli. Now I have all these questions about how these uniforms are designed. Seeing that she, Kim Barrett, had to do with like opening ceremony as you said, 2014 and Sochi. It's like very interesting to see where costume design overlaps with other things that you don't normally associate with. because you know like and Fashion design also is kind of in there as well. Yeah, there is a big lovely little pretzel. Yeah, where it's just like where it overlaps in sport, where it overlaps
01:14:05
Speaker
just in what you think of as like the the the the real world if you will and so that's that's a very fascinating overlap and like yeah she's got a lot of knowledge and a lot of skill and this movie really really shows that and we we haven't been able to necessarily get into the the deep deep deep deep parts of certain things I feel like we covered a lot but we might not have covered it the same in a way that we've covered other things that we're more new to yeah because it feels like such a tight design, a tight unit. So we didn't talk about all of the crew members on the Nebuchadnezzar and there are like different little intentional
01:14:48
Speaker
design choices for each of the characters, absolutely but it is super important to talk about the overall context of the world in which they're living because then you can apply those rules to any character because resources are limited, you know, all those different things. So like anything that's personal is going to be very deliberate.
01:15:06
Speaker
right That really speaks to the care with which she designed this because everything feels like world building and feels like it started from this really solid base of her understanding the story and the world that she was like bringing to life through clothing. so All the choices fall from the concept and the concept was so strong and so clear that It leads you as a designer to the right thing without you having to be like, um Everyone wears feathers. I don't know why like that does that has nothing, you know, like everything is so
01:15:50
Speaker
grounded in the story that you just kind of accept it like nothing stands out and you're like why would they do that like everything makes sense and you're just like you're with it you're in the story like you're going with it and like that's that's the goal it does that thing that we've talked about before which is one of those like sayings about costume design is that your costume design is successful when people don't notice that there are costumes there exactly and there are a couple different ways to interpret it right like one way is that you're not looking at it as costume you're looking at it as clothing and that it functions in a world that tick and also there are some costumes that kind of fade away that you don't really think about even when you're looking at them and you're looking at details because you see that they are playing
01:16:32
Speaker
a bigger part than like an individual suit. The fact that there are suits as a concept that are like identical or in a certain specific color palette, that tells you a story. So the individual doesn't really need to stand out.
01:16:47
Speaker
So you don't really pay attention to the individuals. And that is the success of some of the costume designs because it unifies in such a strong way. And then you do have the standouts like the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar when they come back into the Matrix and they seem so unique in how they walked through the world since we only see any of them in a club like once. but Yeah, for like four seconds. Four seconds. And so like in a club, they totally make sense. And then when they're just like out in the wild,
01:17:18
Speaker
the definition of what they are changes and it all makes sense and supports the story so strongly. So this was like a ah pleasure to watch, but it was also interesting watching from this perspective for the first time for how many times I've watched this movie. I do have a quote from Keanu Reeves that's also in the book by Deborah Landis about his costumes for The Matrix. He knew himself.
01:17:44
Speaker
Keanu. So I want to read this quote. This is him talking about the costumes in The Matrix. So this is a direct quote from Keanu Reeves. When you first put the costume on, it's very exciting, and it really does inform a lot of your character. It's so iconoclastic. I have 23 different versions of that costume, depending on the lighting, the fighting,
01:18:08
Speaker
acting, rain, and no rain. They wanted different ones because they catch different things. It has a monastic clerical priestly overtones, but what kind? It's an individual priest, the archetypal cape. It's the overcoat. It's Superman. In the odd way, it's the lone wolf, the man apart. It's evocative of many things.
01:18:32
Speaker
Yeah. Boom. Also, way to go, Keanu. Nailed it, Keanu. I feel like whenever he talks, he talks, he speaks very deliberately. Well done. As a human who's stumbling over my mouth. I know. Well done. Thank you, Keanu. But yeah, I think that's exactly what, like it's everything at once and it tells you so much.
01:18:53
Speaker
And then you just accept it and watch the movie and enjoy the movie. And v it's great. And then like if you do happen to go down the road of watching all of the movies, you do really get the understanding and the impression of the monastic holiness that is like being implemented in his silhouette as he goes. That that message is really hammered home. um But that's a story for another day.
01:19:21
Speaker
ah this join is next no no This was a fun watch. It was a fun watch. Yeah, you know, I think it's the first time that I've really watched this movie just to look at the costumes and not just to watch the movie. Like obviously I noticed this stuff, but it was the first time that I was really, really just like staring at clothing the whole time. And it was a delightful way to watch the movie. Yeah, it was really nice to see Exactly because like my memory from the first time of watching this was oh my god it like it just had such an impact and part of that is because the visual language is so strong and like everything is so tightly designed
01:20:03
Speaker
And so yeah, seeing it from the perspective of costume and seeing all of those little thoughtful details and like seeing the color palettes being so tight depending on which world you're in and what colors exist there and what colors don't like was super cool to see how with just two people in a white room with two armchairs and a TV, you can create an entire story because they are wearing the same colors in very close shades because that is what is available in that world. It's just like really, really cool. Chef's kiss. Chef's kiss. Thank you compared. What a cool job. Does that wrap up?
01:20:48
Speaker
I think everything we want to say about the matrix. i that's all that's all except Oh, I do have one note. It is literally the first note that I wrote. I think it's worth kind of pointing out for people that maybe are on the younger side. Before like Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, if you worked in a tech company, you had to wear a suit to work. Yeah, it was super corporate.
01:21:12
Speaker
I mean, like maybe, maybe if you were in a specific company, they would relax that to a certain point. Yeah, because but it was still business casual. think Yeah, I don't think that my father-in-law wore suits, but it wasn't like necessarily the way that he would have dressed in a comfortable mode. There was like purpose to it for sure. that was just like something that I was like how quickly we forget that the symbol of the like tech company was not like a hoodie and sweatpants and then it was a suit and tie and then not all tech jobs were like engineer based or what we recognize yeah is with google sometimes they were just like in your sad little cubicle yep
01:21:54
Speaker
Just zero months, zero months. Like, Neo. Poor sad little little cog in the system. Little guy. But that's that's it. I'll stop. I'll stop here. I'm going to stop. All right. So, yeah next up on our journey. through 100 years of sci-fi. We're crossing the year 2000. Are you ready? We are jumping Y2K. We are leapfrogging over the millennium. Yep, right over that millennium.
01:22:29
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode about The Matrix. Next up, we are going to be looking at JJ Abrams' Star Trek, which is a return to a glorious universe that I am only a little bit excited to talk about. Yeah, Ariel, do you like Star Trek? A little. ah little a little bit I think I've only mentioned it in every single episode. Now we can talk about it the whole episode. I'm excited about it. Get ready for lens flares. Red shirts beware. Star Trek is our next up episode. I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it. We will see you then. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.