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The Matrix Reloaded (2003) is a Very Horny Movie
99 Plays1 year ago
The Matrix Reloaded is one of the most fascinating movies to talk about, and boy howdy do we get into it!
Hope and Ella talk sequel expectations, Smith, disappointments, rough and tumble early 2000's CGI, Smith, old white men in suits, Smith, monsters and the mashing thereof, Smith, binaries, cycles, more dodgy CGI, and Smith.
Ergo, open your ears vis-a-vis your podcatcher of choice and concordantly crack open that thesaurus because you'll need it to understand one of the most confounding action movies of all time.
@MatrixQueerPod on IG/Twitter
contact us at [email protected]
Ella Cesari is
https://twitter.com/drawnwithoutref
https://instagram.com/drawnwithoutref
https://ellacesari.weebly.com
Hope Lichtner is
@HopeLichtner on IG/Tumblr/AO3. good luck!
The Matrix music, clips and dialogue are all copyright Warner Brothers and we own NONE of it.
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Transcript
The Struggle Against Machines
00:00:00
Speaker
I stand here without fear because I remember. I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me, but because of the path that lies behind me. I remember that for 100 years we have fought these machines. I remember that for 100 years they have sent their armies to destroy us. And after a century of war, I remember that which matters most
00:00:30
Speaker
We are still here!
Unveiling Hidden Truths
00:00:38
Speaker
I'd like to share a revelation with our family. Let me tell you why you're here. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.
00:00:55
Speaker
You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. Being the one is just like being in love. All I'm offering is the truth. Nothing. No one can tell you you're in love. You just know it. Do it, do it. All's in bone. Hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.
00:01:23
Speaker
My name is Trinity, and you better take your hands off of me. Welcome.
Respect, Struggles, and Purpose
00:01:31
Speaker
Mr. Anderson, you seem surprised to see me again. You freed me, Mr. Anderson.
00:01:42
Speaker
It is purpose that drives us. God, I'm so excited to talk about Smith in this episode. Oh my God. I'm excited for this whole episode, to be honest. I have been looking forward to this episode. Eagle-eared listeners may remember that I was fucking exhausted when we did our last episode. Not this time. I had a full night's sleep. I am brunch high still.
00:02:08
Speaker
Double double double double secret brunch That was that you had brunch and then you had brunch reloaded, right? And brunch reloaded. Yeah, hold on now. I thought you're publicizing your secret brunch
00:02:24
Speaker
They are, I promise you, I can just put this at the end of the episode, and I also promise you that neither of those two would ever listen to a podcast,
Anecdotes on Exhaustion and Podcasting
00:02:34
Speaker
let alone this podcast. Okay, so we're safe. All right, got it, got it, got it. We're safe. I had to explain to Jen what a podcast was.
00:02:40
Speaker
Okay, yeah, we're definitely safe. Like eight months ago. This is definitely not a starter podcast. No, no, no, no. If you're listening to a podcast about The Matrix Reloaded, you're probably not new to podcasts. Yeah, probably. Speaking of The Matrix Reloaded, that's what we're here to talk about today. It's the sequel to 1999's The Matrix. It came out in 2003. Do you want to talk about your history with it before we really...
00:03:09
Speaker
Get into it. Well, in order to do that, I'm going to need the exact date. It was released in the USA on May 15th, 2003. My junior. Oh, gosh, my apologies. I am a stoner. That's a carryover from the other podcasts that I've been on. But that's still canon. Throwback. I was 17 years old. I was wrapping up my junior year of high school and senior itis
2003 Films and The Matrix Reloaded
00:03:37
Speaker
was
00:03:37
Speaker
already setting in and uh uh I this is gonna sound a little odd I know 2003 was a pretty big sum oh no I remember the other movie I couldn't remember seeing any other movies and then I'm like oh wait x2 is pretty good yeah that counts but um I mean
00:04:00
Speaker
going on whenever that came out. I guess these movies are just over 20 years old now, right? We celebrate the anniversary of The Matrix Reloaded about, what, two months ago? And in another four months, we'll be celebrating The Matrix Revolutions. So happy birthday. 20 years going strong. But 20 years ago, I was gearing up for senior year, and
00:04:25
Speaker
I saw this after school on a Friday afternoon, I want to say, and being all my nerd friends that always talked about movies and killed each other in Halo constantly.
00:04:40
Speaker
We were all so excited for this because we all loved the first movie. And then we get to the theater and it's great. And we've got our giant four gallon sodas. And it was the far back here of 2003. So tickets
Anticipation and Impact of The Matrix Reloaded
00:04:56
Speaker
were only like $6 a pop. It was, ah, golden toss. The world was better. Yeah, not great.
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God damn. What did I say the other day on another podcast? It was my memory of history is more accurate than facts. And I'm like, oh, no, this is the first step onto something. I know I'm doing a bit. You're about to say back in my day, as was the style at the time. I don't know. You know, around my belt.
00:05:38
Speaker
I take the ferret cuz the nickel and in those days nickel said pictures of bumblebees on him So So the movie started and then it ended and
00:06:00
Speaker
And I turned my friends and said, that was awesome. And all my friends went, that was garbage. What the fuck was that? And that is the essence of this podcast. I feel like that's how you knew in that moment you were destined to make this podcast, when you were the only one in that entire row of theater goers who was like, that rule.
The Matrix in 2003: A Prolific Year
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm pretty sure I can
00:06:22
Speaker
I can honestly say, because I'm still discovering new bullshit about this movie even now, I can honestly say
00:06:31
Speaker
I was just as confused as everybody else in that theater, but I enjoyed that experience. This movie is the err text of my personal queerness, even though I had zero idea of that at the time, which we've previously established on this show.
00:06:57
Speaker
I saw it like another four times in theaters that summer. I dressed as a Neo that Halloween. I sprayed my short spiky blonde hair black.
00:07:11
Speaker
Tried to talk like Keanu Reeves, which I just imagined to be Emotionless had I drug it if I had my druthers about me at the time I would have just gone full Bill and Ted's like oh
00:07:27
Speaker
But I fucking love this movie. I always have, goddamn it. 2003, notably. So The Matrix came out in 1999. And then everything else came out in 2003 because 2003 gave us Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, the Animatrix, Path of Neo, and Enter the Matrix.
00:07:47
Speaker
All in one year, right? God almighty, what a fucking great year for me, and a miserable year for everybody else. So yeah, yeah, yeah, great for us, great for everybody else. Uh, so yeah, about 80% of the entire franchise is from that one year, I would say.
First Cinema Experiences and Childhood Fears
00:08:02
Speaker
of this 2003 was the year of The Matrix. In fact, somewhere in this house, I wasn't going to talk about it this episode anyway, because it's goes into a lot of bullshit that isn't recapping the movie. But somewhere in this house, I still have my copy of Time magazine from from that month where it was the white background with like four or five of the character posters like interlaid throughout. So it's like fucking Neil and Morpheus on Time magazine. That's amazing.
00:08:31
Speaker
Person of the year. I need to get that framed. Yeah, you should. The Return of the King came out later that year. That cover also kicks ass. Yeah, so 2003, I did not see The Matrix reloaded in theaters on account of I was three years old. And so that was actually the year that I started going to movie theaters, though. That was my first movie that I went to see at the theater, which my parents brought me to Finding Nemo. I was about to ask.
00:08:59
Speaker
Why would I even bother asking? 20 minutes in got, you know, too scared and had to leave, but, you know, it's, uh, is that the sharks is 20 minutes in the sharks. Yeah, it was about that. I do. I do. I have a memory of seeing like the, the knickknack of the short that played before it. I remember enjoying that. So.
00:09:16
Speaker
At least I had some time before I lost my shit. That was your first movie ever in a theater? It was. It was my first movie ever. That's amazing. That's a pretty good experience. I like that. Yeah. Briefly good. But yeah, Matrix Reloaded I saw for the first time probably later in the same year that I saw The Matrix for the first time, I looked back in the chat logs of
00:09:43
Speaker
of DMing Charlie, the co-host of Mr. Shack Lookback with friends. Oh, hi. Hi. DMing, like, from my experience of watching Matrix Reloaded and a lot of, there's a lot of question marks in those messages. I'll tell you that.
Understanding The Matrix Reloaded
00:09:59
Speaker
Cause, um, Oh wonderful loaded is the thing that I, that benefited the most, I think from rewatch because the first time I really didn't care for it. The first time I watched it, it was like, there were maybe like two things I liked and most of it, I was like, Oh, it's
00:10:14
Speaker
And then I rewatched it, and I liked maybe half of it. And then on this most recent rewatch, because then that was the rewatch with you, that we watched all three, that I really started, that I fully came around on that movie, on this movie.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then, you know, this watch, I was like, all right, I would say like, you know, 75, 80 percent of it. OK, good, good, good. So so watching it with me, a psychopath who loves this movie. What was it was me? Me too. Oh, God. It just goes full ham in this. Yes, we'll get there. We'll get there. Oh, God, we will. We will. We will. Jesus. We'll get there on episode two.
00:10:58
Speaker
I feel like there's gonna be multiple Smith episodes. I mean, every episode is a Smith episode, if you really think about it. If you really, it's Smith lives in your heart. Yes. And sometimes he plunges his hand into your heart and makes- Ah, nothing like a good old Smith-fisting. Yes, Smith-smithing. Something like a smisting. Oh, I hate that. So your chat logs a lot of question marks.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, I chatwalks had a lot of question marks, but then as I watched it with you and then just thought more about it and rewatched it more and more, I'm like, the problems that I have with this movie, I don't actually, I know we were talking about a title for this episode being The Matrix Reloaded is a confusing movie. I don't actually think it's confusing. I think if you pay attention, it makes sense. It's just,
00:11:48
Speaker
kind of boring sometimes.
Philosophical Themes and Execution
00:11:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I showed these movies to my dad a couple of years back because largely during lockdown and everything, I ran a podcast with my dad where we would just get high, watch movies and talk about them. Yeah. And it was a blast because I got to show my dad shit that he would never see in a billion years.
00:12:17
Speaker
and he's very much not sober was i mean look there's something great about watching john wick chapter two and seeing a dude get hit by a car and both you and your dad both go oh
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, at the same time, I guess. It's great. It's great. Dad's an ancient hippie rules, but I showed him the first matrix because I figured, oh, you know, it's the matrix. It's one of those. Yeah, exactly. So it's like he'd love that shit. And he did love that shit. And then I showed him the sequels because.
00:13:00
Speaker
It suddenly the ones that were added at the time. Well, yeah, yeah, I I'm still in the habit. There's a third fucking sequel. I'm still in the habit of saying the sequels and just meaning the two thousand. No, but it does. It makes sense because you said before, resurrections is very much stand alone. Like it really is. Yeah, I knew what you meant. I was more clarifying for the listeners. That's understood.
00:13:26
Speaker
I have a microphone in my face. I did all of the technical audio setup for this episode. I spend a lot of my time trying to edit podcasts. When I get locked into these conversations, I forget.
00:13:41
Speaker
All of that. I'm like, oh, I'm just talking about a movie. Yeah. Oh, yeah. People are. Yeah. I have to keep something in my brain says I have to keep it on topic. But that's literally the only because normally I like the ebb and flow. But my gosh. Yes, you showed him reloaded. But before I showed him reloaded and especially before I showed him revolutions, I said, Dad.
Generational Media Consumption
00:14:09
Speaker
I love doing this show with you.
00:14:12
Speaker
I love these movies. These are not good movies. They've got some buckwild action that I know that you will love in it, but you gotta be ready for really boring philosophical conversations to go on about two minutes longer than they should each and every single time. That's generous. Yeah, yeah, two to three, I'd say. Or 10, you know who it is.
00:14:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's- Did you take a stopwatch? Who should take a stopwatch to this? Oh, somebody should, yeah. I think, yeah, the- the- the consensus that I've-
00:14:50
Speaker
come to is that this movie is a mess, but it is an extremely fun mess, uh, for, for most of it. But like I was saying before, you know, this movie makes sense if you pay attention, but the problem is that you are not motivated to pay attention. Um, first movie explains, has a lot of exposition to do, has a lot of expositing. And as we covered in that episode, as I praised,
00:15:13
Speaker
It does so with really interesting, unique, memorable imagery and visual storytelling. I mean, just think about Morpheus holding a battery up to the camera. Like that explains so much visually and so much of them going into the program and explaining things that way. And this one has a lot of sitting down, talking, shot, reverse shot, back and forth conversation. And that's how they do a lot of the expositing.
00:15:43
Speaker
and it's harder to get an audience to retain that information. Oh, very much so. Part of my grand theory as to why these movies don't work quite as well is because of the devotion to wearing the sunglasses. I completely agree, because that's the first thing I noticed about pulling this up on Max, formerly HBO Max, RIP, was that the poster for this
00:16:09
Speaker
Isn't great. Because, you know, remember how you could see Neo's eyes and identify
Exploring Zion's Culture and Government
00:16:14
Speaker
with the character? Yeah. Not anymore. You can't know. No, none of their eyes are visible. I will. I will personally go to bat for like the individual character posters where it's just. Yeah, it's dark white background and then a. Especially the ones that were in the theaters at the time, it was.
00:16:39
Speaker
Bit of a close-up of each character where their face wasn't fully in frame. They were cool. I like that It was like from the the just below the eyes teaser poster. Yeah The idea that the idea that the main poster does not have like any character eyes visible Like makes it look like a neo and trinity are about to say they're on a mission from God I mean technically
00:17:11
Speaker
Technically yes. Technically yes. We're on a mission from the one. Oh golly, that's perfect. You're right, I think. People would be way more on board if that simple
00:17:27
Speaker
You know, there's no end point. The first movie works. And to a certain extent, the fourth movie works really well because they both serve as like entry points to their respective worlds. Like in the first movie, you have to establish the world in general. And then in a fourth movie, you have to establish the updated world. Yeah, the way it's changed. This movie specifically reloaded is largely set up for
00:17:57
Speaker
the third movie to happen, and then a wicked ass car chase happens. Yes, well, there's other wicked ass scenes in here.
00:18:08
Speaker
I mean, yes, but largely, most of leading up to that car chase is set up for the third movie. Yeah, honestly, the plot of this is incredibly thin. The driving force, because it's basically, we have intel that the machines, sentinels, the squids, the evil squids from the first movie, the machines are going to
00:18:31
Speaker
They're making a big old drill tunneling right into Zion. That's That's
Lore and Thematic Depth in The Matrix Reloaded
00:18:37
Speaker
the threat. That is the looming threat that will get us through the next two movies is up They're drilling down here. They're all coming down a bunch of really really
00:18:47
Speaker
I do like the idea that you are, I assume, pitching here is that in 2003, we would have been bookended by, instead of doing two two-hour Matrix movies, let's say one three-hour,
00:19:05
Speaker
Matrix sequel. Yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of. So we would have we would have been sandwiched between the Matrix or whatever it would have been called. Matrix reload volutions. Oh, God. It's I don't like the mouth feel to that. That sounds. Yeah, it feels good on my tongue. And the animatrix, right?
00:19:29
Speaker
Uh, no, sorry, Return of the King, the other three-hour massive epic that people were anxiously awaiting. I mean, it's like, I'm sure we'll get in when we cover revolutions, but it's like, in the case of, say, Back to the Future, those are two that was written as one script and then realized it can be two distinct movies, and they are, they became two distinct movies that justify being individual films.
00:19:54
Speaker
I don't think these two do. They really don't. They really don't. They're not. I feel like there are two good movies in here. I think it's really with the editing rhythms. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. The biggest, the biggest issue I think is the cutoff point to the end of this, I think is the biggest.
00:20:18
Speaker
issue but the looming threat just kind of being a lot of sentinels is like I do understand in universe like that is a big threat sentinels are a big deal and they're sending a lot of them but it's like yeah like imagine if instead of like a death star it was like the empire is sending
00:20:36
Speaker
so many stormtroopers. They're just sending a lot of stormtroopers. There's so many of these guys. There's a lot of them. It doesn't feel as monumental as it should. That's exactly what playing a Star Wars video game feels like. That's every Star Wars video game. It's literally just infinite stormtroopers.
00:21:03
Speaker
Um, don't get it twisted. I love that shit personally. And again, I love these movies. I understand why people don't like them is, is I think what we're trying to establish for sure. For sure. For sure. Okay. And, um, why you 25% don't like this movie.
Character Dynamics and Bureaucracy in Zion
00:21:23
Speaker
I gotta say, I think I like.
00:21:27
Speaker
this movie more than I like watching this movie. Because I was even texting. Absolutely. I was texting you as I was watching it. It was like, man.
00:21:37
Speaker
You forget how front-loaded this is with just conversations. Absolutely. I was way more excited to talk about this movie than I was to watch it. Oh, abs... Absolutely. I'm gonna go back and watch the fight sequences just by themselves. You know, yeah, that's what you gotta do. Yeah, now that I got the 4K with my own personal IMAX set up, I'm like, yes. The method that that friend of yours showed you to watch The First Matrix, that's actually the ideal way to watch this movie.
00:22:23
Speaker
to the matrix reloaded. Cue it up and ready to go. I gotta say, just calling the shot a little in advance, the formatting for the architect sequence is my favorite thing.
00:22:33
Speaker
He was preparing you for this one.
00:22:39
Speaker
But yeah, so the the group I guess the the rebels I don't know they don't really have like a name like they're the denizens of Zion like I don't want to say I don't want to give them a name that refers to Zion because there's a group of there's already a group of people with that name and they're not very nice and
00:22:58
Speaker
uh-huh yeah it's it's a little painful that that's the name that i really i had a note i have a note here it's like i really wish we saw more of zion and also that it was not called zion i
00:23:15
Speaker
Okay, here's where we're gonna get deep lore for a hot second. The machines named their city 01. That's right. So it's supposed to be some sort of like, it's like poetry, it rhymes. Also because it's 01 Zion, it's IO in the center, so it's 10. Right. Instead of 01. It didn't quite land, it didn't. I get it, but that word, yeah.
00:23:42
Speaker
It's loaded, you know? And it's- I get that there's a lot of religious, you know, allegory here. But also what I noticed is that Zion culture seems really interesting and you need- there's this like-
00:23:53
Speaker
It's like they have these almost priest figures, they have prayer, they have these ceremonies, and we didn't see much of any of that. It's weird thinking that we never actually saw Zion in the first movie. You don't really think about that. We get the promise of Zion.
00:24:13
Speaker
or at least a reference to it. You don't even need that movie functions fine without seeing Zion. And in this movie, it's like, oh, it's kind of boring. So I guess we didn't really need to see it. Like it's built like a bloody fucking huge submarine.
Philosophical Depth and Narrative
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah. Everything's kind of docking bay and cave. Yeah. I mean, I like I thought the cave stuff, I think the melding of the organic and the like almost like future primitive combo thing was
00:24:42
Speaker
Because they are in the park, but technologically, they're at the disadvantage because the machines control everything. So they're building a lot of stuff back from the ground.
00:24:51
Speaker
We're Monday morning quarterbacking this thing pretty hard. We're like Thursday evening quarterbacking this thing. Yeah, but it's like, yeah, the integration of those two visuals would be compelling. What if you put the ships in the caves? What if everything was just caves, man? Yeah, why does it all have to like,
00:25:13
Speaker
I don't know it does to that I do like that conversation that uh that neo has with the the counselor oh god did you mean the most boring sequence in the mind I think that I have decided to zero in on I think it's a good scene talking about like the interdependence of like
00:25:32
Speaker
What does control really mean? You say we control these machines? Well, yeah, we could destroy them if we wanted. Yes, but what about our food, our air, our water? We depend on them, they depend on us. I think it leads really well into the rest of the franchise, and it opens up some interesting ideas genuinely. If only it had interesting fucking visuals to accompany it, you could actually pay attention to it. Instead, we're just looking at Blue Nothing. What if the counselor was wearing a different funny hat?
00:26:01
Speaker
every time you shot reverse shot. Every shot, yeah. Christ. Why is there a council exactly? It's giving Star Wars prequel and I don't love it.
00:26:13
Speaker
Mmm. Wow. Yeah, you're right. Speaking of the trailer for The Matrix Reloaded dropped in front of Attack of the Clones. And how fitting because there's a lot of fucking talking in this movie, too. Boy, I gave an extensive monologue to Bex the other day while we were driving
00:26:33
Speaker
somewhere, I guess, about how the entirety of the Star Wars empire is built on merchandising, but that's God in heaven. Yeah. This movie's merchandising was largely spin-offs. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It just seems so weird that they have this like, not only a government, but like this like,
00:27:03
Speaker
It's really archaic seeming government of like- Yeah, Cornel West is
Control, Free Will, and Dialogue
00:27:08
Speaker
just shilling on the council. It feels antithetical to that like cyberpunk vibe that we got from the first movie of how they operated, you know? Yeah, yeah, I- Again, Monday morning quarterbacking, but- I wonder if that like stems from the residents of Zion that were never in the Matrix? Maybe, maybe.
00:27:32
Speaker
It's also that I picked up on a line the counselor said where he's like I he said he doesn't sleep often He said I would figure I was asleep for the first 11 years of my life So why you know, I got to catch up and I was like, oh, yeah He was they do say in the first movie right that they tend to release minds early, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah
00:27:51
Speaker
Um, if my, if my learning or am I thinking of, I might be thinking of a different line. Do they? No, no, no. You're, you're absolutely right. I can't remember the exact line, but you're absolutely right. Um, if I'm right in remembering even, uh, the, uh, we'll get into him, but kid was supposed to, I know, I know Jar Jar Binks. Uh, he's 30. He's 30. He's actually, he's yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, he was 26 when these movies came out. It's Dawson casting at its finest. I have my notes. Kitty is so, so, so, so, so fucking annoying. If he actually was a younger looking actor, he would be endearing. Because I like the idea of this young guy who feels like he owes everything to Neo because he was freed from the Matrix. It's a superb idea. Great idea. His bit in the Animatrix is actually pretty fabulous.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, that's a fabulous mythology altogether. I mean, I'm not arguing to be clear.
00:28:52
Speaker
But yeah, he's he's supposedly like what, 15 or something like that. No way. In like within the context of the story, he is supposedly like 14, 15. Yeah. Like a sad teenager in high school chatting to strangers. Yeah, that would that would play into the idea that they free minds generally early. Yeah. But yeah, that's an interesting
00:29:18
Speaker
It's again, why I wish more of Zion was explored, because I wish they kind of unpacked the idea that there is this government and it could, you know, that point could be made about like, well, we're trying to establish freedom, but then we have this kind of bureaucracy tying us up and there's this tension between the counselor and Morpheus and Locke, right? I'm confused because there's a Locke and there's a link.
00:29:44
Speaker
There is Locke. Locke is the commander. He's the military guy. He's one of the only characters in the entire franchise to get, or at least in the world of the freed minds. He's one of the only people that has a first and last name. He does? Yeah, I'm pretty sure his name is John Locke.
00:30:05
Speaker
Oh, well, I mean, with a first name like that, you might as well just go by. Yeah, exactly. Also, John Locke is famously the name of the ship name, I believe, between Watson and Sherlock from the Benedict Cumberbatch series.
Critiquing CGI and Cinematic Techniques
00:30:28
Speaker
Hang on. Now, like,
00:30:32
Speaker
He's a popular tag on Tumblr, the John Watson and Sherlock Holmes ship called John Locke. Oh, God. Yeah, you're right. That's terrible. I hate that. I'm typing in John Locke Matrix and I've got to be getting the character name wrong because there's no way it's John.
00:30:55
Speaker
He's played by Harry Lennox. Just give me the goddamn character. Jason Locke. That's way better and way cooler than John Locke. That's way cooler. Alright. Jesus Christ, that's Jason Locke.
00:31:11
Speaker
But yeah, there's this, there's a, there's a schism. I do like the schism that they have where, you know, Morpheus, true to his character from the first film, is all in on Neo being the one. He's all belief. He's all faith. And Alok is a military guy and he's much more practical. He's like, well,
00:31:28
Speaker
We can't send our ships out there because of because you believe this guy's magic, right? Like, yeah. And and, you know, it's this very Han Solo and the Force kind of thing. I'm like, oh, yeah, sure, sure. You believe what you want to believe. And, you know, they think it's all it's all it's all it's all crap. But the council is Morpheus, so.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, they largely seem to anyway. We don't hear too many dissenting opinions. That's always why I thought it was interesting. It's interesting in the very first Star Wars, you know, the first person that we hear say, may the force be with you is the general. Like it's a military guy who isn't a Jedi. And it's like, I always thought it was interesting that like, these are normal people in the galaxy, but they believe in the force. And I think it's like,
00:32:19
Speaker
It's an interesting reversal of that here, where there's people who don't buy this, who are like, you know, we're just trying to survive here. Maybe it is mostly those people who weren't in the Matrix, who don't know what it's like inside the Matrix. It's the Star Wars or the Matrix equivalent of have a blessed day.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, don't tell me what to do. You're not my supervisor. What? Oh, sorry, that's my response when people tell me to have a nice day at work. You're not my supervisor. Yeah, yeah. The line, I always laugh at the line when Locke's like, God damn it, Morpheus, not everyone believes what you believe because it's a very obscure line from like a season, I don't know, 25 or something episode of The Simpsons. It's a
00:33:12
Speaker
one of the Treehouse of Horror Halloween anthologies in which Homer is playing in a Shakespearean play. And then he starts reading other scripts accidentally. And so he says, he says that line, damn it Morpheus, not everyone believes what you believe. And then like, either Paddy or Selma says, that's the screenplay from The Matrix Reloaded. And so when I watched it before I watched this movie, when I watched it for the first time, I was waiting for that line. And I was like, there it is.
00:33:41
Speaker
god damn that's incredible i had no idea about that yeah that's amazing and the fact that they picked an actual line is really funny and get a hokey line at that yeah it's not even an iconic line from the movie but it's iconic in my heart now because of god
00:34:02
Speaker
Fucking damn it. That has to go on the Instagram. Please dig up that clip. I got it. We got to find the clip. Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. Oh, I was taking screenshots of a script that we need. Oh, yeah. Because they're funny. So does the script to give directions to really, really lean into the CG? Because boy, this movie does. Oh, God. OK. And it's not necessarily more, but I think it's that it's done so much in this one on human bodies that it
00:34:32
Speaker
Looks bad. I have a whole grand theory about like mid early to mid 2000s CGI. And that's a whole other conversation where I begin by cussing out the name George Lucas. That's it. That's its own whole separate episode.
Cultural Impact and Philosophical Undertones
00:34:51
Speaker
I'm just realizing now we've gone 33 minutes and 30 seconds into this episode recording. And I feel like we're just kind of bullying the Matrix reloaded.
00:35:00
Speaker
I mean, we'll get into the good stuff soon, but I think we just got it. It's the problem is that, like you said, it is front loaded with a lot of issues. Well, I this is a these are both both of these movies that we will be talking about this and next episode are flawed movies. But that does not stop me from loving these movies and spending
00:35:25
Speaker
hours talking about these movies. So yes, the CGI is not great either. Using almost exactly the same techniques that they're using over on Return of the King, which is, you know, in production at the same time as these two movies in the same country.
00:35:49
Speaker
This one was Australia. Well, it's a little bit to the left. This was Australia. Lord of the Rings was New Zealand. A little bit to the left there. Yeah. Yes, baby girl, stop trying to nuzzle out to the microphone. I don't know if that's good audio or not. Sorry, there's a cat. No, there's a cat. Now she's trying to eat my hand. I love you too.
00:36:17
Speaker
Anyway, um, yeah, so yeah, it doesn't help and we might as well just like.
00:36:28
Speaker
address it so we're not just like waiting on pins and needles to say Beetlejuice three times. Yeah. This movie was fully fucking bodied. Like talking about bullied, like knocked down on the playground to take your lunch money. This movie had its shit wrecked by the MTV Movie Awards Reloaded.
00:36:48
Speaker
Like fucking we got to do it. That's got to be its own thing, because it's that that is amazing. Own episode. Yeah, it will be. Oh, God. Early on for that. But any time like as much as I love this movie, I think of Will Ferrell as the architect. Yeah, more than more than whoever. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Whoever. I don't know the cat's name off the top of my head. Colonel Sanders.
00:37:15
Speaker
oh god um it's i one one compliment i will give this film it is hands down hands down the horniest matrix movie whoa whoa yeah you're absolutely right and that's saying a lot because these are horny movies but like off the top of my head we got so obviously the orgy cave right obviously obviously orgy cave
00:37:38
Speaker
was everybody's number one on the list of what the fuck was that. Yeah. There's an orgy in every Matrix movie. This one just happens to be in a cave.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, but it's in a cave wall. Two of the main characters are fucking. Yeah, that's true. There's just a couple of shots of orgies that are interrupted by plot in the other movies. It's good fucking though. This is orgy interrupted by more sex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have the sex with a side of sex. Oh boy. And then of course, elevator sex.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. As soon as those doors are closed, they are just kind of on top of elevators, not moving down fast. And then I love the, I love the, the line of view. Like everybody stopped asking me to perform Jesus miracles. I'm trying to fuck my girlfriend. Rude, rude, rude. Um, and then not long after that is of course, where's my pussy.
00:38:41
Speaker
Oh, God. Okay. Let's start going through. Let's start working our way through the movie because we can certainly call out every
Character Motivations and Narrative Depth
00:38:50
Speaker
instance of horny by just going through the plot of this movie. That's true. That's very easily. I mean, off the bat, there's a lot of orgasm imagery in this movie, but the first scene is a
00:39:03
Speaker
Car harkening back to the first, it's an action scene of Trinity, a senator motorcycle careening into a building full of cops where it explodes, because that would definitely happen. What was that motorcycle loaded with? It's more that the physics programming in that part of the matrix is a little off. I mean, being the one is essentially opening Gary's mod and typing no clips, so I think the physics modeling is a little off, but there's a lot, there's like,
00:39:32
Speaker
There's a scene where she's jumping off the building and then she gets shot, and it's a dream that Neo is having. And she gets shot, and her face is orgasmic, I would say. It really is, yeah. And it's paralleled in the scene where Neo and Trinity have sex. Her face on climax is what reminds Neo of his dream, where she is penetrated with a bullet.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, through the rib cage, that's fun. Also, baby girl, if you walk on the laptop while mommy is trying to talk about the matrix, please continue talking. I'm just gonna give my cat the death stare. All right, I was just gonna say, RIP tank. Oh, RIP tank, yeah. I don't know if he died or not, but he's gone.
00:40:27
Speaker
We can only assume he died, unfortunately. Wachowskis killed him because he wanted too much money. Yeah, God in heaven. I mean, that's that's that's pretty much what happened, right? Like the actor just wouldn't come back because he was asking for more money than he was. Yeah, pretty much. I want to say there's more details to it than that, but like.
00:40:49
Speaker
Oh god, I honestly forget. Tank being the survivor of Cypher's betrayal means nothing now because they just replaced him. You do get that kind of happy ending override, yeah. They just replaced him with Link, who I think is that he's married to Tank's sister? Is that what she said? I think that's the connection, yes. Or was it Dozer's sister or Dozer in Tank, also brothers?
00:41:12
Speaker
Dozer and Tank were brothers. So yeah, I think their sister is Link's wife, if I'm remembering correctly. That makes sense. Or in this case, Link's pussy. Ah, Christ.
00:41:25
Speaker
It's so funny. It's so funny because he opens the door and his niece and nephew were there. He's like, where's my pussy? He turns on a fucking dime. It's amazing. But I love the idea that if it weren't for the kids there, like his wife is used to it. Like that's just normally how he greets her. He just normally walks in like, where's my pussy? That's just how their marriage operates. And I love that. Christ. Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
00:41:55
Speaker
I think we need to start doing that with our significant others. I think that needs to be more accepted, more accepted flirting. Well, I was going to say, is it reading as just a line of dialogue written by a trans woman? Where is my pussy? I was about to say, yeah, that's me walking into the surgeon's room. Where's my pussy?
00:42:26
Speaker
You're coming out of the drugs after surgery. And the one thought on your mind is, I've got to...
00:42:37
Speaker
Remember to say this line. It has to be this line. When you're going under on the anesthesia, you got to think of that scene. And I guess conversely, a trans guy doing phalloplasty might wake up and think, oh, where's my pussy? Oh, right. It's this now.
00:43:02
Speaker
I also so then we have that meeting of all of the all of the rebels in the matrix when they're Meeting to talk about the Osiris the Intel that the Osiris left which I yes I was watching with a good friend of mine Nilo showing her the movie for the first time and then I leaned over very nerdily and explained that is Elaborated on in the matrix and the animatrix of course that is a
00:43:24
Speaker
Or I guess in a very stan we check out the animatrix final flight of the Osiris true believers
00:43:35
Speaker
That is a short that played in front of Stephen King's dream catcher. And let me tell you, those two energies are diametrically opposed to one another. Did you go to see that? I did. I was on a date and the girl I was seeing at the time loved Stephen King and loved horror movies. And I knew nothing about either. And I was not prepared for
00:44:04
Speaker
that. I do fucking love that every, every rebel in the matrix dresses like that. Like, I mean, you can look however you want to look and they all choose to have
00:44:17
Speaker
trench coats and leather and latex and sunglasses. And everybody's got such a look. But like, that does beg the question. Imagine if every like faction, like every team, every ship crew had like a different style. Like what if one of them was like, we're like cowboys on this ship. We're like. We're really into Devo on this ship. Yeah. I think both are equally amusing.
00:44:47
Speaker
But they would still have to have like the same kind of basic interior Well, it would still be like the same like comfy clothes sweaters knitwear Real world I'm talking right. Yeah, but then you plug in and you're a cowboy my gosh. I love this. I love this
00:45:08
Speaker
There's got to be a group of nerds that are just like Star Trek, the original series, right? Yes, definitely. And they like and they they beam into the matrix using the beaming effects. And yeah, one of those like when they when they pick up the phone, they're like, all right, two to beam up. And I'm like, let's get it. Do you think when they got given a whole she's got more
00:45:36
Speaker
There's absolutely a Star Trek role play Matrix ship named the fucking Enterprise. It's like the Enterprise J or whatever the fuck number letter they got up to. Not a biblical allusion, but you know, it still works.
00:45:53
Speaker
I God, I know. See, this is going to feed back into the idea that I think we're going to talk about ongoing.
Philosophical Conversations in The Matrix Reloaded
00:46:00
Speaker
But like I want a day in the life matrix TV series. Oh, my God. Yeah, I mean, I want it. I don't want to. Yeah, I don't want any sequels explaining more of the the history or going into like these epic battles of evil days.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah, I just want to see, like, what's a pajama day like on the Nebuchadnezzar? That's what I want to see. Yeah. Do you think they have movie nights? Do they have movies? Yes. Do you think they play magic? If they would have movies, they have access to The Matrix, right? You can just load up Netflix via The Matrix. Yeah. Or you can watch people in the construct playing a movie. You can just watch them be a movie.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, I literally everything's the Truman show. Oh, God. Exactly. And when so after that meeting, some agents show up and one of them says, I'm looking for Neo. He set the free. And when that when these when he came on the screen, even though he's in silhouette, I was applauding and cheering my ass out like a studio audience on a sitcom. It rules. It rules. They don't even like fuck around and pretend that it's not Smith.
00:47:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no. And what I noticed is that the other agents who the ones who are are still connected with their their earpieces because he gives his earpiece to Neo or as a gift for Neo to show that he's.
00:47:32
Speaker
Disconnected. I think within the script of this movie, he's no longer referred to as Agent Smith. He's dismissed Smith from this movie forward. As being established in the fucking badass killer line being, oh God, Smith will suffice. That's so fucking raw.
00:47:54
Speaker
um but yeah the other agents referred to him i noticed this watch they referred to him as the anomaly uh Miguel O'Hara of course wants to talk to you but um um spiderman 2099 but they uh oh god i never i never picked up on that before how the other agents perceive smith now because he's an outcast now because of whatever whatever neo did to him to defeat him in the first movie
00:48:22
Speaker
you know, messed with his code and so now he is not bound by the rules of the other agents. And he can
00:48:31
Speaker
in a kind of perversion of the way that Neo kind of jumped into his chest and blew him up, he can plunge himself into other people's chests and take them over and make them other smiths. Essentially, like a virus that copies itself, which is ironic. It's absolutely a virus, yeah. But it's ironic because he called humanity a virus in the first place. It's humanity a virus, yeah. You're not wrong.
00:48:54
Speaker
And he even accuses humanity of like, it's designed to spread until nothing else, you know, and that's exactly what he's doing here. So he, what was I gonna say? I don't know, this is great. Well, in this they establish, very quickly. Oh, and more penetration is all I was gonna say. Oh Jesus Christ. More penetration imagery. He goes inside you.
00:49:28
Speaker
There's a there's a brief fight with Neo and the other agents and Yeah, they say like there's interesting lines from both them and some opponents they face later of like mm-hmm He's still only human and like he's just a man like he's kind of like he bleeds briefly at one point It's like
00:49:47
Speaker
It's an interesting reminder, and a kind of callback to that Jesus imagery, I guess, of like, you are both mortal and also magic, you know? You're kind of both. Yeah, it's not quite God mode.
Religious Allegories and World-Building
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah. But...
00:50:03
Speaker
But it's basically god mode, and they counter that with the agents by having a really kind of lazy throwaway line of Neo just going, hmm, upgrades. Like that the agents have been upgraded to match Neo, but it's like, and yeah, sure, like I believe that the Matrix would do that, but that the machines would build that in, but it's so easy a way to explain how Neo doesn't just fucking kill the agents like he did before.
00:50:29
Speaker
It does feel like a bit of a cheap line. Yeah, it is a cheap line, but they're having cheaper lines. I mean. It's a chest. Yeah. Where is Neo now? Oh, he's doing a Superman thing. We're Warner Brothers. We can say that. Oh, God. Superman. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. What do you think?
00:50:57
Speaker
of Neo's flying. I think it reminds me, especially the ending where he's rushing around the city, reminds me of, I know you didn't see Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but there's a meme of the character Adam Warlock flying really fast, and it's got that fish eye kind of look where he's just really way up against the camera. Oh, god. And it's really funny. Oh, god, that's rough. I think it's hilarious.
00:51:23
Speaker
Fair enough. Fair enough. I think it's also the shots of Neo flying at night are the best examples of the CG body shots because it is at night and the lower lighting helps it look less fakie fake. It does, it does. It is 2003 for me the smoothness of everybody kind of throws me off. Yeah.
00:51:42
Speaker
Because again, I've been watching these movies again in glorious, projected 4K. When it's a live action shot, you can see everybody's individual pores. It's a little crazy. I'm not sure we need to progress past 4K, if I'm being completely honest. I guess you could say the DVD got some upgrades. Jesus.
00:52:13
Speaker
I do like that it is funny how like casual, like flippant he is about saying it like, oh, upgrades. Like it is like, it's a well-delivered line on Keanu's part. He can get, Neo's getting a little bit cocky, I think. He's getting sassy, he's getting sassy. Cause he's like, when he's talking to the Oracle again, he's like, I felt like sitting down. Like, you're not telling me to do that. I did that. My free will, bitch. Hey. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and we also meet.
00:52:43
Speaker
I'm gonna take this Twizzler, but I'm not gonna be happy about it. Yeah. Yeah. You want some candy?
00:52:51
Speaker
No. Oh, God. We meet Nyobi as well. Nyobi? Nyobi? I don't remember how it was. I think it's Nyobi. I've been saying Nyobi for 20 years, so I'm going to- I'll be false of that. Yeah. Gosh, I hope I'm right. Played by Jada Pinkett Smith. And she, in this film, they established that there's tension between Morpheus and Locke because Nyobi used to be with Morpheus. Now she's with Locke. And I noticed, like,
00:53:20
Speaker
this this franchise is all about love people don't realize that because it's so badass but it is fundamentally about love it truly is yeah so we know that Morpheus as love
00:53:35
Speaker
So we're already like chipping away at the edifice of Morpheus this early in the film. I mean, the coolest motherfucker on the planet, you may remember from the first movie. Oh, he's got an ex? What? He's got an ex that left him because he got too obsessed with Neo.
00:53:54
Speaker
Okay, all right, all right. Members of the Polykeel getting jealous, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. He gets to be, and we also, we see, I mean, a lot of him in that speech in the cave, right? The very, tonight we declare our independence.
00:54:17
Speaker
I will do the full speech. I've had it memorized. I bought a megaphone so I could do that speech. God, that's awesome. And we have it on top of the episode, of course. But yeah, no, first off, in that sequence also, Morpheus is a shirtless king. That's true, yes. Like he is rocking it. You were already horny, guess fucking what? It does hammer home that
00:54:41
Speaker
Locke is maybe the only person in all of Zion who has two names because the counselor goes, I give you Morpheus and everyone she like, everyone knows exactly who that is just by the one name. Like he's like Madonna in every way. Oh God. Perfect. Yes. It's like there, there's only like, I think
00:55:03
Speaker
They established that there's like 250,000 sentinels per the scans. And I think that's- Sentinels for every man, woman, and child in Zion. The nine binary people are safe. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so ostensibly there are 250, let's... Ah, God.
00:55:30
Speaker
God, yeah, yeah, for a series is so progressive. Yeah, it's it some lines you just get hung up on, right? Yeah, like what was the other there was the counselor saying like, these are men and women, our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters. It's like, you know what? There's got to be so many non binary people in that crowd. God in heaven. You know what?
00:55:51
Speaker
I'm gonna counterpoint it and say that's part of what these two movies are about, realizing that there are more levels of control that you don't even realize are levels of control. Good point, good point. So it's like even the people that are freed are still stuck in the binary. Oh God, okay. All right, I feel better about myself having
00:56:19
Speaker
logicked my way out of that moment. It's just like, it saves me from having to say, eh, it was 2003. I don't know what to tell you. But no, there's an in-universe explanation for it. Damn it. Great. So you get this crazy, amazing religious speech by Morpheus where he sets up the stakes essentially for the next movie and a half.
00:56:50
Speaker
And then you get, it feels like so long, this double fucking sequence.
00:57:00
Speaker
It feels like it takes forever. It's good. It's so good. I love, I, Neo and Trinity, I love them so much. Like they're so good in this. And it's, I think it's the kind of thing that is retroactively bolstered by resurrections, emphasizing on them so much as a couple. Oh, absolutely. But even here, it's like the, he touches my heart every time when he is talking about.
00:57:21
Speaker
how he's, you know, he doesn't directly talk about the dream that he had about her dying, but he says, like, I'm afraid I'm going to lose you. And then she takes his hand and says, you feel this? I'm never letting go. And that that that makes me all misty every time. Like, it's so it's so well done. And the two of them are so hot. The energy between the two of them is always amazing. It's
00:57:44
Speaker
I'm never gonna complain about that. Anytime they're on screen together, I'm in love with it, absolutely. Yeah, and they're the T4T couple of all time. They absolutely are, god damn it. It rules. It's so good. I'm also touched by when Neo is off on to see the Oracle.
00:58:05
Speaker
and kid, fuck him, may he rot in hell, he says one of the orphans wanted me to give you this, he said you would know what it meant and he unwraps the spoon.
00:58:19
Speaker
It is a pretty nice little gag. Yeah. The kid from from the Oracle's waiting room from the first movie. Very cute. Very cute. And it's one of the few kind of like because you'll notice in both this and revolutions, there's no mention of like the pills or any of those other icons from the first movie because there isn't really less emphasis on the interplay between the Matrix and the real world. And it's kind of just the Matrix
00:58:51
Speaker
It's just, there's kind of these two separate worlds and they aren't, maybe they aren't as intertwined as they feel in the first. Yeah, the closest you really get to that for the majority of both of these movies really is, and I did wanna call this out, it's earlier in the movie, but the Nebuchadnezzar docking sequence,
00:59:19
Speaker
Oh, yes, absolutely. That sequence is another one that is about two minutes too long, where you go through the entire process of seeing the Nebuchadnezzar getting scanned as it's going through the tunnels and you see the process of
00:59:39
Speaker
Unlocking and opening the gates and the shape, you know, you know the gag in space balls with a really long spaceship Oh my god, that yeah, and then on top of that on top of all fucking that the soundtrack is going done done Like the most important fucking thing in the universe is happening
Technological Themes and AI
01:00:00
Speaker
and It's entirely
01:00:06
Speaker
only set up for the next movie. If you're watching both of these movies back to back, that is about two minutes worth of incredibly intricate setup for something that will happen about two hours later.
01:00:23
Speaker
Yeah. Two and a half hours later in movie time. It's a really cool idea though because essentially the the technicians who are at the gate of Zion are they are themselves plugged into Zion's central computer so they're in a construct that is this white void that's like the control system of Zion and it's really cool.
01:00:42
Speaker
It's really so fucking cool. We see it maybe all of five, two minutes, all of two minutes. Well that, even just that little bit with the white rooms and everything controlling the gates, we only see that for about 14 seconds. Yeah. The rest of it's just the fucking bloody gears and chains on the, on the, on the, uh,
01:01:01
Speaker
The scene where the counselor is pointing out one of the big machines in Zion is like, now I know that has something to do with recycling our water. I have no idea how it works. I'm like, yeah, that's me with this movie.
01:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, you really need to understand how these doors open for six months from now. I promise you it will not be a boring scene when it actually pays off. I promise you it will involve characters that you care about. Yes, absolutely. I guess we do get a little, oh, sorry.
01:01:37
Speaker
Oh no, sorry, I'm agreeing with you. It's like, I don't particularly care for most of the people involved in that, most of the characters involved in that sequence.
01:01:48
Speaker
But I'm just a slut for that aesthetic. So these movies really work for me. So we do get a little bit of escalation on that interplay between the matrix and the real world, because Smith in his quest for spreading his smithiness, he takes over the body of Bain, a matrix. Well, one of the rebels who was in the matrix at the time and then picks up the phone.
01:02:15
Speaker
and escapes into the real world and thereby entering Bane's real body in the real world. Which I think is a really cool concept. It's an incredible concept. This movie doesn't do anything with because it's all set up. This movie does nothing with him. It's also, it happens so early on that you almost forget about it by the end.
01:02:35
Speaker
It really feels like it should have been something like saved up for way later. Yeah, I think Smith entering the real world should have just been the end hook. Or it's like don't even show Smith entering the real world. Leave the movie as is, but cut that sequence before Smith obviously catches up to and defeats Bane.
01:02:59
Speaker
and takes him over. You just cut before you don't know what happened to Bane. Bane shows up later. It's like, you okay, dude? But you got to also establish who Bane is beforehand. Which they don't. Which they don't. We don't. I want to know what Bane in real life was. Is he in the group meeting? I don't remember.
01:03:19
Speaker
I think, yeah, but that's a thing. That doesn't count. They're all wearing fucking sunglasses. You don't know anybody's fucking identity. Yeah, this movie doesn't pass the bane-dell test. This movie doesn't pass the eyeball test. God almighty, the fucking sunglasses. They were so cool, though, in 2003. Wanted bane to just sound like, we'll see you soon, girl. I knew it was going to happen. God damn it, Mr. Anderson.
01:03:48
Speaker
I got so ha- it's ironic considering that it's, you know, dead naming, but it made me so fucking happy to hear Mr. Anderson again, like... It's... It makes a stupid smile to my face.
01:04:01
Speaker
When he, when Smith became Smith again in Resurrections, I like pumped my fist in the air and screamed, it's my boy! Yes, it's so good. I can't wait. Ah, God, such an easy mark, amazing. So when Neo goes to see the Oracle once again, because he has many questions, because the Oracle said, you're not the one, but turns out he is question mark?
01:04:30
Speaker
He first has to defeat essentially a firewall, I guess you could say, a program named Serif. Well, now we're getting into, this is the iconic, if you listen to the podcast blank, check it all, this is the David Sims says, Serif is a login screen of it all. Oh, yes, yes. So, yes, technically- The screen is a login screen.
01:04:52
Speaker
Technically speaking, he is a what's the thing? It's like a handshake authentication protocol, which is essentially just yes, it's a login screen. He's a he's a capture. Yes. Are you a robot? We talked about this ages ago, like capture was invented like a year after this movie happened. So they could have defeated the the machines with just a cap with just a selecting images of roads.
01:05:23
Speaker
Uh, let's see. People of Zion, we have one thing that the machines don't. The ability to select all images with crosswalks. Uh, nope. Hey, look at that. Capture was created at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000. Oh, wow. Okay, so this is actually... Oh, so in universe, it was just after the machines took everything over.
01:05:51
Speaker
If they had, if they had lasted, if humans have lasted another year, they would have had a way to defeat them. Oh, God. Because they can't pick out images with motorcycles. So my question about Sarif. Okay. Is Sarif's first name Sans? Oh.
01:06:16
Speaker
Good night, everybody. Terrible, terrible. A moment of silence for that joke. For Sans Serif. Oh, God. So this movie, like you said, it is front loaded, but I think it's also front loaded with like, I think a lot of the good stuff is also in the first half, unfortunately.
Smith's Development and Symbolism
01:06:35
Speaker
Second half. It feels so much of this movie. This movie's pacing is so bonkers because it jumps between these crazy awesome action sequences.
01:06:45
Speaker
Like this sequence of Neo fighting Serif. The soundtrack is going buck wild and they're fighting on tables and bullshit's getting kicked over and it kicks ass and it slaps. But it's like sandwiched between these two very boring conversations and
01:07:06
Speaker
Like, in defense of the Oracle sequence, the actress, she was literally dying of cancer at the time, so she could not do very, very much while shooting this movie physically. Fair enough. And it does give us some interesting revelations, one being that the Oracle herself is a program. It does. Just having to work for the good guys here.
01:07:32
Speaker
It does, which I love. This sets up a climax that is essentially just a rehash of the first movie, which is you have to make a choice between yourself or someone you care about. Turns out, maybe you don't have to make the choice, but you've already made the choice. Yeah. It's like, she's like, you're going to have to choose yourself for Trinity. It's like, well, you said that about Morpheus last time. It's a.
01:08:02
Speaker
Well, again, this is like part of why this movie like dug itself in so deep into my brain. For me, specifically anyway, like the first movie is unfortunately can be misread as just
01:08:25
Speaker
surface level, right? I've had literally people tell me to my face that the Matrix is only a bit of speculative, bit of science fiction about the fact that we're living in a simulation. Side note, this kid actually thought we lived in a simulation. Kid, he's 28 years old. Yeah. Well, that didn't stop this kid from being 28 years old in this movie. Good.
01:08:52
Speaker
But reloaded specifically, it's asking you to question even the things that you don't think about questioning. Again, getting back to the binary is a major one.
01:09:14
Speaker
and my personal favorite just the the hero's journey in general the story structure in general like why are we so following these rote rules free yourself of all of these
01:09:32
Speaker
Unfortunately, yes, it's also plot that guides us and turns out people really love a coherent plot. Yeah, but forget coherent plot. We got to talk about the burly fucking brawl. Have we gotten to the burly brawl? Is it the burly brawl time? It's the burly brawl time. It's the burly brawl time.
01:09:53
Speaker
I'm going to drop in early brawl. If I've got my druthers, I'm going to drop in bits of the soundtrack to this episode. So this is early brawl. It's so fucking good. It's so much fun. It's the escalation of how many Smith's because it's not that many at first. I think in my memory, it was a lot at once, but it's an escalation of Smith's. Then it is a dog. Yeah. Dog pile, dog pile.
01:10:23
Speaker
God, this fucking movie just had its shit wrecked by that little special. Another across the spider verse kind of parallel of the like you created me, Mr. Anderson, like very, very the spot of him. Yeah. Yeah. And now here's a hundred God damned variants of the same thing chasing you and fighting you. I guess it's similar to the spot in another sense that it's a
01:10:49
Speaker
initially kind of a secondary villain who over the course of the movie is amassing more power to become a more primary villain next time. Oh, I wasn't even thinking of the spot. I was thinking of Miles ending up having to basically fight hundreds and hundreds of Spider-Man. Well, that too, yeah. The benefit that that movie has is that there is a Spider-Man that is a cat.
01:11:11
Speaker
And I kind of now want to see an Agent Smith that is just a cat. Have you seen Meow's Morales?
01:11:19
Speaker
I have seen that. Yeah, I honestly have to say my personal favorite is still the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Oh, yeah. Well, that's I need to buy one of the toys from a Jurassic Park and just paint it up. Oh, yeah. Spider-Man. I need to do that now. I'm a fan of Peter parked car myself. Jesus Christ. The puns. Of course you like the baton name, which is also why I love the fucking
01:11:48
Speaker
like anytime Smith says the word me you can tell he just loves me me me me too and it's there's something very like trans about it where it's like he was an agent he was part of the system he was not allowed to have an identity really he wasn't allowed to use the that first person pronoun like that really
01:12:09
Speaker
So the fact that he relishes so much in saying just the word me, that he gets to think about himself and what he wants. And what he wants is more of himself. That's cute. Do you think he got like.
01:12:25
Speaker
I really wish I could have seen, like, Smith's actual awakening into this, you know? Do you think he got, like, a Disney Princess I Want song? Yes. Like, part of your world sort of thing? I want more me.
01:12:43
Speaker
The the matrix code splashing up behind him in his hair and the breeze and walking around on those. What do you call them? Oh, feet. I want to God damn Hugo even bringing that he does become part of your world. He does make into the real world.
01:13:10
Speaker
Well, also in terms of the Matrix itself, he becomes the world, essentially. It's true. Yeah. True. That's goals. Smith is hashtag goals, kids. And there's something, it's like a, it is. It's like a young, you know, trans person discovering themselves. Literally, in this case, discovering himself. Like, and, and, you know, when you've been denied an identity, it's, it's, it's understandable that you would kind of become fixated on it, you know?
01:13:41
Speaker
And he also definitely has a huge crush on Neo. My God, he is horny for our boy, isn't he? Yeah. In a way, he's a dark reflection of Kid, right? Because Kid feels like he owes Neo everything. Kid feels like Neo freed him. And Smith feels the same way about Neo. Oh my God. I have so many takes about Smith.
01:14:07
Speaker
He's the zero to Neo's one. He is a being not of love but of hate. He is the perfect goddamn foil. So Neo in every way, shape or form. Neo is entirely selfless and Smith is entirely selfish. Yep, exactly. And Smith falls over with bowling pin sounds.
01:14:30
Speaker
That's my favorite fucking joke. It's so good. It's so fucking good. The Burley Brawl is so camp that I almost want Batman 1960s like POW cards to like flash on the screen. Somebody edit that, please, please, please, please. But have it be like in the Matrix font in the Matrix text.
01:14:59
Speaker
Um, my personal favorite is that in the, in the 4k, you can just see in several shots of the burly brawl. It's just, it's, uh, uh, his name's, uh, I'm going to butcher his last name. I don't have it pulled up in front of me. Chad's to hell ski.
01:15:16
Speaker
Um, uh, Keanu Reeves is stunt double as Neo, who would later to go on to direct the John Wick series and play handsome Chad.
Merovingian, Causality, and Choice
01:15:28
Speaker
Yeah. That's right. Chad. Like when we were watching it together, we were both just like, that's just Chad. That's Chad. That's Chad. Have we watched? We haven't watched four together yet, have we?
01:15:41
Speaker
We have not yet watched four together yet. No, we will certainly get there over the next couple of months, I think. Yes, Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wicks. My God, my God. I love him. Any other thoughts on Burley Brawl other than it's fucking awesome? It is fucking awesome. And this is unfortunately
01:16:10
Speaker
where the CGI becomes the most worst, I'd say. The thought of him kind of rotating around on the pole and walking on the smiths is cool, but it's very cool in theory, but they unfortunately, because of the
01:16:29
Speaker
complexity of these camera movements because the burly bra starts off and it's these fairly long extended takes of actually Keanu Reeves and a shitload of other dudes doing these complicated
01:16:45
Speaker
choreographed martial arts sequences together where you see their faces for extended periods. And for the most part, like there's Hugo weaving and then there's a bunch of other six foot two Australians they found hired, paid to dress up in suits and wear rubber fucking Hugo weaving masks. I really want a rubber Hugo weaving mask. I want one so bad. God damn it.
01:17:13
Speaker
I doubt any of- Not to have as like movie memorabilia, but to actually look like Hugo Weaving. To wear every day. It's like a- It's like a- Is that like a turducken of like transness at some point? I'm thinking it's more like a face-off situation. I'd like to take his face off.
01:17:36
Speaker
After the Burly Brawl, we go to meet the Merovingian, who is holding Prisoner the Teenacre. So, okay, essentially the plot... Everybody's favorite character, the Merovingian. The plot from here on out is essentially fetch quests of, like, you need... So, okay, we need to get to the source, right? We need to get to the source in order to figure out what to do about the fucking drilling...
01:17:59
Speaker
uh sentinels so to get to the source we need a key to get a key we need the key maker to get the key maker we need to go to the merovingian it's like the world's worst escape room although the matrix themed escape room would actually be pretty badass it actually would be shit that's amazing um
01:18:16
Speaker
you could have like the phone and everything too but no we have to go see the merovingian who essentially said he's a program living in the matrix he's a wealthy guy who said they said i could be anything so i became french he is the most french because he programmed himself specifically to be french he said it's his favorite language
01:18:40
Speaker
And so he said, well, you said the, you know, you, you, you decided your gender. I decided my nationality. No, I decided I would. The Merovingian's gender is French. My gender is French. Oh, God. And he's just the most obnoxious prick in the universe. God fucking damn. But he does give a lady a cake orgasm, further showing how this is the horniest Matrix movie.
01:19:07
Speaker
Oh, the cake orgasm. I forget
Mythology and The Architect Sequence
01:19:10
Speaker
about the cake orgasm right up until the cake orgasm happens. I expel it from my memory up until it is summoned back into my brain. I'm a big fan of pro cake orgasm. You're pro cake orgasm. All right, fair enough.
01:19:29
Speaker
And it's like, I don't give a shit. This is actually one of the few scenes where it's, you know, philosophical dialogue accompanied by interesting, engaging imagery, because he's talking about like, you're not wrong, you're not wrong. And how like, you know, he's the idea that things causing chain reactions and, you know, it's playing into the theme of pre determinism and choices.
01:19:53
Speaker
with this idea of causality, with things having ripple effects, and are those effects predetermined, or are they affected by the decisions that you make? And have you already made them? And he uses a cake orgasm to illustrate this philosophical point. I can't believe you're selling me on the cake orgasm. I'm selling you on the cake orgasm. Would you like to see a dessert menu?
01:20:16
Speaker
Oh, shit, shit. Write that down, my friend. That's a hell of a pickup line. Shit. Would you like to see it?
01:20:30
Speaker
Christ alive. I'm less attractive in the Merovingian voice. It is. It is. Nothing makes him less attractive. It's like, well, it's a cause and effect. I drank too much wine. I must take a piece. The way he says piss, I just like, Oh, I would like to see this man be punched. That's not happening. Oh, it's like peak. The Merovingian is like the movie at its peak, like self-aware camp kind of vibe. You know, like I do love it.
01:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that.
01:21:02
Speaker
So earlier when the Oracle is talking about the programs that obey their instructions or go rogue, she says, every story you've ever heard about vampires, ghouls, or werewolves is a rogue program. And this is also alluded to in The Animatrix with the haunted house story. But it's brought to life in live action in this movie with a group of characters that I can only refer to as the Monster Mash.
01:21:31
Speaker
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
01:21:51
Speaker
I do want to say I think she took the dreads out. Don't quote me on that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if the photo I saw was recently like she should get some like headshots taken now so that her Google images can update accordingly. But yes, ghost scrolling through your memories as a trans girl is a rough time.
01:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, but still like we're talking like scrolling through pre-transition memories is one thing. But if you've got, you know, wait, wait. Okay. I'm to be clear, I am not defending the dreadlocks. I'm just saying, yes, I would like the most recent photo of. Oh, oh, yeah. Immediately, please. Dreds are otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:22:40
Speaker
So yeah, that's part of the monster mash of the ghost twins. They can phase through solid objects and they also look really bad when they go transparent. When they do that CGI didn't hold up. And it didn't have to either. It could have looked weirder, but it just looks bad. It's not like it had to look realistic.
01:23:01
Speaker
If you made it look like jacked up white matrix code, do you think that would have worked? Like, would they still have read as ghosts? Yeah, because it's it also makes it less fucking goofy that they're fucking monsters. Like, which I agree. Again, I think it's camp fun. I do like it because when they when the the Merovingian's, I guess, girlfriend Persephone, right, walks, leads our heroes to their little lounge.
01:23:27
Speaker
And she walks in on these two big guys watching a vampire movie, and she's like, now these boys are very loyal, aren't they? And they go, yes, mistress, which again, horny. Yeah, they're notoriously hard to kill. I mean, how many people carry silver bullets? And then she shoots one of them in flying men. Right in the head. These are werewolves. They're loyal and they can be killed by silver bullets. I love that there's werewolves and vampires in The Matrix. It's my favorite thing. I love dogs.
01:24:00
Speaker
Oh my god, wait a minute. Are there furries? Holy Christ. They're werewolves. They're furries in the Matrix. Oh shit. Oh shit. Alert the furry community. The Matrix is your new playground. Was it in the first movie or I guess it's somewhere in the lore, right? That the Monster Mash version of the Matrix was like the second version, right?
01:24:20
Speaker
Yes, that was, if I'm right remembering, my lore, it was the second iteration of The Matrix. You remember where that was said? You put all of the gods and dreams. That is in...
01:24:33
Speaker
the architect sequence, which we are coming up on. Yes, I depressingly have, if not the actual dialogue of the architect's weekends, I have most of that lore basically memorized exactly thanks to just pouring over it for 20 years. I can think of no other punishment, but Smith establishes in the first movie that the initial version of The Matrix was perfect and too perfect and people didn't believe it.
01:25:03
Speaker
So they went complete 180 for the other one and just made it haunted. Yeah, they they drew upon like our horror stories and gods and monsters and shit. It's like, oh, shit. I definitely would. But it does sound fucking badass. Yeah. Like Bella Lugosi's there. Nosferatu's there. Lon Chaney.
01:25:29
Speaker
But yeah, the monster mash is there and then Persephone induces even more horniness by forcing Neo in order to give information on the key maker asks Neo to kiss her as though he were kissing Trinity. All right. I want to hear your read on why you think this scene exists. Why do you think she specifically has to make out with Keanu Reeves? You mean in universe? It's because Persephone is horny.
01:25:57
Speaker
Okay, all right, Occam's Razor. That's- That's also, I think it's making a character point. It's making a character point about her relationship with the Merovingian, I think, because she wants to feel what it feels like to be kissed by a
Persephone and Emotional Energy
01:26:10
Speaker
loving person, because the Merovingian is not a- Again, the theme of love. The Merovingian is not a loving person.
01:26:15
Speaker
I fully understand the character's motivations to begin with. I just want to hear the lore bullshit. I didn't think I didn't think she couldn't lead them to the key maker. I just thought she wouldn't. She wanted to get something out of it. Oh, no, it's it's entirely transactional. Most definitely.
01:26:35
Speaker
I personally think that because she is lording it over a couple of werewolves, I, my personal read on Persephone is that she is essentially an energy vampire. That's a good read. Yeah. So I mean, she wants to feel the love and passion that hasn't been there for years. So she got it. She's she wants that emotional connection. Yeah.
01:27:01
Speaker
so interesting because you know we see them watching a vampire movie but we don't actually see any vampires in this gaggle of monsters and yeah exactly I believe you can remember there are wolves and ghosts
Monsters in The Matrix Universe
01:27:10
Speaker
and we meet a vampire we meet ghosts and we meet werewolves and then I want a mummy damn it I want a mummy in the matrix implied that we need a vampire
01:27:21
Speaker
I mean, there's mommies in the matrix. Does that count? They're definitely mommies in the matrix. Trinity can step on me. Trinity can dodge this any day. Speaking of Trinity, we get her to see her do more fucking awesome stuff because there's a fucking chase on the freeway, baby.
01:27:45
Speaker
Uh, oh, here we go. Um, what are the vampires watching on TV? Well, first off, Google says that the vampires are watching. No, those are werewolves watching the TV Matrix. Um, but it was an excerpt from the bride of Dracula from 1960. And I believe if I'm remembering my shot composition correctly, I am. I've seen this movie a lot. Persephone is on screen at the same time as one of the brides of Dracula.
01:28:13
Speaker
I like that. Implying further into my theory that she is a Dracula. I wonder if you're the only person who who's thought that, probably not. I have no idea. It's been a little while since I've done a deep dive in the wild mass guessing pages of The Matrix, which I am going to have to do sometime very soon. But on that. Oh, we're going to do so many episodes on wild mass guessing bullshit. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. I'm excited for it.
01:28:42
Speaker
Hell
The Chateau Fight
01:28:43
Speaker
yeah. But she's a vampire. Cool. Oh, wait, hold on. Nope. Nope. No, no, not not. Well, not no, but let me see. In behind the scenes footage, Persephone herself is compared to a vampire that seeks after emotions by the actress that portrayed her, Monica Bellucci. There you go.
01:29:10
Speaker
So word of I think you're right on the money there. Fuck. Yeah. All right. Ah, I like being proven right occasionally. That's nice, especially when it comes to the matrix bullshit because so much is speculative.
01:29:22
Speaker
But yeah, nothing's awesome, and her leading them to the Keymaker leads to the fucking awesome Freeway Chase. Oh, well first, it leads to the fucking Chateau fight. Oh yeah, that's true. With Neo versus... The Monster Mash. The undefined Monster Mash, yeah. I wanna know who's what in this lineup. Who's the mummy? Who's the Dracula? Who's the... Frankenstein. Who's the Frankenstein? Give me Frankenstein.
01:29:51
Speaker
I didn't see one invisible man. Yeah, he died of a heart attack in that very chair. What is that from? That's from monsters versus aliens. Oh my god. All right. Fair enough. So yeah, they have a battle in the chateau and then the Merovingian
01:30:17
Speaker
beats Neo to escaping and closes the door and Neo opens the door and it's the mountains. I don't want to skip over having trash talk this movie so much earlier in the episode.
01:30:30
Speaker
The Chateau, I personally think, is one of the coolest fight sequences in the entire series. You do get him blocking all of those bullets. It's really fucking cool. That, it starts off with the bullet blocking, okay, fine, easy peasy. And then they have the most buckwild six-on-one sword fight. They're just grabbing anything they can of these priceless artifacts in the Chateau. This Chekhov's gun showroom of weapons.
01:30:57
Speaker
Uh, I, I fucking love this entire sequence. Uh, this is, this is one of the ones that I frequently play. Uh, just to be in your highlight reel. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. In your, in your, in your childhood friend in the basement watching movie, uh, method, man, we didn't, that wasn't even the basement. We had access to the main living room for this. Wow. Wow. Yeah. No, it was a, it was a good time. Um,
01:31:23
Speaker
Uh, definitely the cool house to hang out at when you're in middle school. Uh, um, but, uh, yeah, we get this kick-ass like multi-fight of everybody versus Neil slaps.
01:31:37
Speaker
with the cool soundtrack and the blocking of the blade with the hand. But then occasionally within the sequence, they'll just show you still standing by the back door is the Merovingian. He's just chilling back there. This dude's just chilling while his minions try to kill Neo. And he watches them fail to kill Neo and then he fucks off.
01:32:06
Speaker
without Neo. So he's like, I don't know if he's learned the right lessons from Bond villains, like, you know, just dropping you to the sharks and then walking away before bothering to see if you die. But that's just kind of got to me, this watch through, just these shots of- It doesn't really cause an effect. So he probably wants to see the effect. That's a very fair point.
01:32:35
Speaker
But yeah, he then strands Neo in the mountains and we get more sassy Neo when he calls, he calls Link and he's like,
The Freeway Chase and Horror Elements
01:32:42
Speaker
where the hell am I? He's like, wow, you're all the way in the mountains. And Neo looks around and goes, oh, really? Yeah. And real quick, I might as well point it at now, but he's doing this on the world's coolest cell phone. These movies had the worlds, they were so cool. Cell phones manufactured for this movie.
01:33:01
Speaker
That every character that uses a cell phone in these movies Uses and it kicks ass and we're gonna talk about it later on a merchandise episode. Oh, yeah, but Yes, yeah, I don't I don't really have specific comments on the freeway chase other than it fucking slaps and the key makers there and he's like a funny little guy and he's like the definition of
01:33:22
Speaker
He is a funny little guy. And also I think this this one really ups the horror element of like the idea of the agents or or even Smith taking over your body because like there's moments where they freeze on like the faces morphing into the agents when they're pursuing them on the freeway and it's horrifying. Oh it's alarming to say the least yeah.
01:33:45
Speaker
So yeah, it ultimately ends with Trinity and Morpheus and the Keymaker are being chased by the ghost twins and the cops and the agents. Yes. It's a great multi-level fight with those like four levels of threats.
01:34:10
Speaker
And of course, they had to put Neo all the way in the mountains. They really had to work the side by Neo. That fight would not last long because he swoops in and saves everybody at the last minute.
01:34:21
Speaker
It the timing is, of course, Neo flies at the speed of plot. So yeah, yeah, it works out pretty perfectly. It's not really a confirmed like geography to the matrix. The matrix is implied to kind of have like one city. Yeah, that's another thing. It's called like mega city or something like that. I might be pulling that from Judge Dredd. But they never name the city in any of the movies, with the exception of
01:34:52
Speaker
uh, resurrections, which is just clearly San Francisco. Um, hard to deny that one, but, um, yeah, that those very, I won't give it away, but given how the arc, the difference in the architects, that version of the architect would totally make San Francisco. I mean, yeah. Yeah. It works out pretty perfectly. Um,
01:35:18
Speaker
Oh God, I had a point, but yes, those few brief shots of Neo flying over the city, zooming in on the truck that is about to explode.
01:35:34
Speaker
The city just, this place is truly a horrifying urban dystopia. As I stumble my way up to the words that I'm trying to say. It's like a GTA sort of thing where it's like the whole world is the city and then you get to the end. It's just the edge. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of, this place sucks. Yeah. I didn't see a single tree. Yeah.
01:36:02
Speaker
So then we get to the climax of this movie is about a building That's what I've I wrote in my notes that I finally understand this climax and I couldn't tell you now I could I could have told you in the moment, but I lost it Okay, there's a building and there's a security system and
01:36:25
Speaker
And the security system explodes the building if it goes off. That's what I understand, which doesn't make any sense. But they need people in the control tower to keep pressing the button, because it only goes off for five minutes at a time. But then all the people in the control tower die in a really dark way, because the room blows up in the Matrix, and then you see them in the real world all just drop dead.
01:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's scary. That's fucking terrifying. But that's why Neo is running out of time to get out of there.
The Architect's Scene and Themes
01:37:04
Speaker
And he tells Trinity, stay out of this because of the dream that he had about Trinity's death. He's like, what if I told you to stay out? And so Trinity stays out. But it's what brings her in is she doesn't want to stand by and let Neo die. Right. Neo and Morpheus and the key maker on their way to the source
01:37:23
Speaker
They get cornered by Smiths. Yeah. And he says the best fucking line. Great thing about being me. There are so many means. It's just perfect. Then all the Smiths burst out. So fucking good. Oh, God. Fucking slaps. And.
01:37:47
Speaker
I think you've been waiting for this, though. This is the moment. Yeah. This is the moment where we meet. I wrote down because this just stood out to me. So the architects, the architects room is essentially just a wall of monitors, not unlike the interrogation room that we saw in the first movie. Yeah, it's just it's a bunch of different neos and they're all reacting in slightly different ways to what's being said in the scene. And one of them just screams at one point
01:38:16
Speaker
You old white prick. Oh, God. Well, I might as well mention that right up front. I will tell us about this old white prick hope. Tell us about a little white prick who doesn't know any words less than three syllables.
01:38:34
Speaker
I am gonna go on the record right now and say something the most controversial take in all of Matrixdom. This is the most important scene in all of the movies. It is and I wish it wasn't. It is and I wish it wasn't. Ergo, open your yapper one more time and I'm gonna architect a world of pain all over your candy ass. Ergo!
01:39:00
Speaker
I love this fucking weird-ass fucking scene where the movie just stops on a dime, sits down in a comfy reclining office chair and says to you, here's why everything you think about this series is cool is completely wrong.
01:39:23
Speaker
I do like it on that level. You are wrong. The audacity of this bitch. I love it. I am blowing out the microphone. It's passion. God damn, I love this fucking bullshit. I love it so much. The density of his dialogue truly cannot be overstated, and it makes me think about the line from Gravity Falls with Grunkle Stan like, wait, you got like a word in a calendar or something?
01:39:52
Speaker
Because, okay, so the first movie establishes that there was previously a The One, right? That there was a The One before Neo. Okay, okay. And he talks about them. Okay, okay. But the architect comes out and tells us that there were actually six versions, right? Okay, so let's talk about it. With the first version of the Matrix, Matrix 1.0 was Heaven.
01:40:16
Speaker
Okay, great. That shit got fucked. Nope. Couldn't do it. Version 2.0 was super hell. Was Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. Oh, fuck. I love that. Yes, that's much friendlier than my version. But then, you know,
01:40:37
Speaker
The architect was working in his lab late one night, one night, and his eyes beheld an eerie sight and Oracle began to rise from its lab began to rise. But yeah, that's right. The mother of the matrix. The Oracle.
01:40:56
Speaker
is a program designed to understand human emotion. And she gave the architect the concept for the Matrix 3.0, which is this matrix, our matrix, the one we know and love,
Neo's Choice and the Theme of Love
01:41:11
Speaker
cyberpunk dystopia, late 1990s, which was... You have to give humans a subconscious level choice.
01:41:24
Speaker
to participate in the society, and they will not rebel. And the matrix that we are in right now is the matrix 3.6. There have been five other the ones before Neo. And that is because- Versions 1 and 2 did not have ones. They didn't have- Versions 1 and 2 did not have ones. They had angels and demons and bullshit, and it's awesome. And now all that bullshit is contained to Neo.
01:41:56
Speaker
Well, most of it. Basically. So the architect says at one point during his very elaborate speech, I want to use big architect like words. I should have looked up my word. I want to hear a reading of the architect seen as drunk Orson Welles. Oh, Stephen, this one's for you. Stephen, this one's for you. Hang on. I have to get into character.
01:42:24
Speaker
Apologize for the quick binary, but it's my passphrase for Orson Welles. God, I should have drank milk or something before this instead of doing bong rips. Oh boy, this is going to be great. This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that the War of the Worlds was
01:42:42
Speaker
You have many questions, and although the process has halted your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Er, go. Some of my answers, my boy, you will understand. Some of them, and some of them you will not. I'm real fucking high. And this dialogue is a little wavy on this screen, and it's making me feel a little drunk.
01:43:04
Speaker
Oh boy, this is not great. Hey, where'd it go vis-a-vis. Good. Concordantly, while your first question is the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant. Your life is a sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. Scroll down. God, this is a lot of fucking dialogue leading inexorably here. God,
01:43:31
Speaker
My favorite thing to do is recite all-star as spoken word poetry. Somebody once told me the world is how to roll me. Can you make your wedding vows the architect speech and end it with vis-a-vis love? I have been taking... I have been taking... Can you have someone playing the architect officiate your wedding?
01:43:49
Speaker
My vows might just be a video edit of very key sequences from movies I love. I'm not decided yet. I got a lot of notes written anyway, but Neo is in essence.
01:44:07
Speaker
If the matrix is viewed as purely computer mathematical programming, Neo is the resulting ends of an equation being run to the completion of that program, which unfortunately, despite the architect's best troubleshooting, he has not been able to work that bug out of the system. So each iteration of the matrix 3.0 comes with a built-in shelf life.
01:44:36
Speaker
spanning approximately a century, which is why Morpheus earlier in the movie saying, it has been 100 years. They drill that 100 years into you because each cycle of the matrix lasts about 100 years. So in the first movie, Morpheus says, you think it's 1999? It's actually closer to 2199. We don't know exactly when. Right. But doing this math,
01:45:04
Speaker
this new math introduced to us, we actually realized it's closer approximately to 2699. So it is 700 years in our future, which explains almost instantly why the fucking sewers are so fucking huge. Oh, because they had
01:45:30
Speaker
several hundred years to build and expand them. And it turns out the machines, thanks to this repeated process of five ones before Neo, we realize the machines are just actually practiced at destroying Zion and then rebuilding and repopulating it and starting the cycle again. Holy fucking shit.
01:46:00
Speaker
Holy fucking shit. I love this movie. And they're used to it because they're machines. You know, they think of everything in terms of cycles and. Exactly. Exactly. And and something and thematically, something I truly love about these two movies specifically is that so much of it is about breaking these cycles, be it story structure or binaries or.
01:46:25
Speaker
human extinction you know he says that neo has as well i guess an illusion of choice but choice is the problem because he can either save trinity or he can save everyone right i mean exactly actually what it boils down to the difference with this specific matrix and neo specifically is that neo is the first
01:46:49
Speaker
the one to be in love with one specific person. And that was, we kind of realized, well, we'll get into the reasoning behind that later, or really the cause to that effect.
01:47:09
Speaker
Power love, baby. Yeah, so Neo is given a choice at the end of this exposition-heavy and just movie-breaking sequence. He is given a choice.
01:47:26
Speaker
You can either go save Trinity who is going to die as per your premonition, as per the premonition, as the prophecy foretold, or you can walk through this other door and be returned to the original source coding of the matrix
01:47:48
Speaker
The entirety of Zion and all natural human life on planet Earth will once again be completely wiped out, but you're gonna choose a bunch of dudes and ladies that are currently plugged into the Matrix and miraculously free them and restart Zion from scratch, thus beginning the cycle.
01:48:12
Speaker
A new. Indeed. Oh my goodness. God in heaven, this fucking movie, I love it. So Neo, being Neo, being in love with, Trinity decides to say, fuck that, okay. It's an amazing choice after hearing that basically everything he thought was true is not true. That the prophecy that Morpheus loves so much is bullshit and has happened before and they already know how it's gonna turn out.
01:48:39
Speaker
Morpheus keeps saying like, oh, but the war is going to end tomorrow. It's what the prophecy says. And well, it's, it's, it's, it's jumping ahead quite a lot. It's jumping an entire movie ahead. But, but why Mr. Anderson? Why, why do you persist? Could it be for something as insipid as love?
01:48:58
Speaker
That's the whole theme of the whole thing. The great thing about The Matrix is there are like 80 themes. You can just kind of pick your favorite that week. It's about love. It's about choice. It's about truth. It also depends on if you're talking about franchise as a whole or specific movies. Well, yeah, it can vary scene to scene.
01:49:21
Speaker
but as a larger franchise. So he rushes to Trinity's aid and does manage to save her. Trinity is saved by doing what she always does, getting penetrated by Neo.
01:49:33
Speaker
Oh Christ. Neo gives her some fingering and fishes that bullet right out of a rib cage and then literally goes back inside her to touch her heart and restart it. Oh God. I hate everything you just said and I know visually it's also not as that appealing on screen. It's also not wrong. Either. No, it's fully accurate and I hate that. That's why it's the Horniest Matrix movie. Horniness saves the day.
01:50:01
Speaker
And it's a nice reversal of the first movie where Neo is the sleeping beauty and now Trinity gets to be saved also by a carnal activity. It's goddamn it.
Neo's Real World Powers and Cliffhanger
01:50:15
Speaker
So then the movie just kind of peters out, I think, after that. I mean, the architect scene really is the climax of the movie, to be honest. And it really does not read as a fucking climax at all, unless you are me. Everything after it is just kind of like stuff kind of happens. The sentinels attack and Neo develops the ability to actually like defeat them in the real world, which is so. Yeah. So that, I think,
01:50:42
Speaker
That shot of Neo holding up his hand and the sentinels sparking and dropping to the ground dead. And then Neo dropping to the ground. And then Trinity screaming, Neo!
01:51:02
Speaker
It should have been cut to black. Neo written and directed by new metal or Dave Matthews or something that I really feel like that should have been the end of your movie. Cause you're, you're setting up this entire movie about questioning things that you didn't even know needed questioning it. So to have the final shock be wait, he can control the machines in the real world.
01:51:30
Speaker
and then getting nothing again until November. I think that really would have worked. I mean, I had also this watch through it really strikes me how sad this ending of this movie is for Morpheus because oh my God, it's when the heartbreaking Morpheus, the the the sentinels blow up the Nebuchadnezzar and then Morpheus says some bullshit from a book or the Bible or something. Yeah, I dreamed a dream or something.
01:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, he starts singing Les Mis. But it's master of the house, which is weird. But now I understand that it isn't just about the ship, but it's about the fact that Neo returns from the source and tells Morpheus that the prophecy was a lie.
01:52:16
Speaker
And it's this very dramatic irony reversal of the first movie, because now Neo is the one telling Morpheus the disturbing truth. Where Neo is like, I hate to be the one to tell you this. Like, yeah. And now Morpheus is the one, and Morpheus, cool, confident, put together Morpheus is the one out of his element and he doesn't know what the road ahead is. From the first movie, you already thought Morpheus
01:52:46
Speaker
was just the coolest person ever. And then this movie gives you the upgrade to Morpheus standing on top of a semi-truck trailer driving down the highway in that trench coat, the outfit, the suit, the sunglasses, the green tie, holding a katana. It's the coolest thing in the world.
01:53:11
Speaker
ever of all time, and then to see the rug pulled out from under him. It's just- And that's what makes that line now read as heartbreaking to me, because I understand the full context of it, because the problem with the last part of this movie is that most of the other times I've watched it, again, I have not really wanted to pay attention, because it's kind, it's just a boring movie sometimes. Oh, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm forcing you to pay attention to the major story loaded. If anything, you're enticing me to pay attention.
01:53:41
Speaker
Oh, well, well, oh, no. Is this a shared fandom or a Stockholm syndrome? Oh, God. Aren't they always the same? Yeah, but yeah, it's usually the listener that's getting Stockholm. Yeah. Weirdly, the last scene is.
01:53:59
Speaker
So they're in like this, this infirmary in Zion and it's it's not in Zion. It is aboard a ship called the Mjolnir, which everybody just calls the hammer because nobody can pronounce Mjolnir in 2003. Yes. So the movie hasn't come out yet. Yeah. Mio Mio.
01:54:16
Speaker
Yes, they're they're on board the mu mu mu mu. And yes, so the doctor who is very attractive. Oh, you noticed. Yes, I did. And I'll notice even more in the next movie. They're talking about how like that, that other crew said that
01:54:38
Speaker
There was an EMP that was set off too early and everyone on board this one ship was killed. And but there was one survivor and then we pan up from a shot of Neo on the hospital bed to a shot of oh my god, it's some guy.
01:54:57
Speaker
Oh it's the guy from earlier. His face is upside down. I didn't recognize him. Yeah. It's rough. It's rough. It's a rough. The fact that he's upside down. And he's not the most distinctive looking fella. The fact that he's not the most distinctive looking fella. We also haven't seen him for fucking 60 minutes at this point. And he's upside down.
01:55:17
Speaker
It doesn't read as Bane, but it is Bane, the character that, of course, Smith is currently possessing. So there's your setup. There's your to-be-concluded. That's the movie. Well, you do get one of my favorite ending title cards of art all time. I don't get it too often. I got it in this. I got it in another middle movie that you invoked earlier in this episode, Back to the Future II.
01:55:41
Speaker
It's just to be concluded, but it's in that matrix. Unlike Back to the Future 2, this one doesn't end with a trailer for the third movie that basically gives the entire film away. Well, it does end with a trailer.
01:55:56
Speaker
It does end with a trailer? It does! The after-credits stinger to this movie is a brief trailer that's really just a series of quick cuts. See, that would have been better. Like, the Back to the Future one is really egregious. It gives away so much of part three. It really does. It really does. I can't lie, I love that though. I can't believe there's no edit that doesn't have that.
01:56:22
Speaker
I mean, there should be because I want to say for the original original theatrical release, it doesn't have that. But then like a month or two into its release, since when do we have access to original theatrical edits of movies anymore, George? God damn it, George. That's that's going to be, I think, a sooner than later episode. Yeah. But God, anyway, we've been going for almost as long as the movie itself. So.
01:56:50
Speaker
Any closing thoughts? I mean, we're definitely going to get into so many individual aspects of this movie specifically later. That's the thing. It is full of individual aspects that I love, but it's, it's such a mess. It's a fun mess, but it is a mess. It is.
Complexity of The Matrix Sequels
01:57:04
Speaker
These two sequel movies are, like I said, it's, it's the two that made me truly obsessed with this franchise. They're way more fun to talk about and obsess over than to watch.
01:57:15
Speaker
because it's such a tangled mess of a whole bunch of different things. The Matrix 1999 is. A flawless, perfect movie, really, and as such, it's been talked about already so much. Yeah, these ones don't have as much limelight as they deserve, because I think they are just as if not more interesting to talk about than the first film, even though they're obviously not as good at all.
01:57:43
Speaker
I would much rather talk about a fictionalized backstory for the Stormtrooper in Star Wars 1977 that smashes his head into the door that's opening. Then I do about Grand Admiral Thrawn. I don't give a fucking shit about Grand Admiral fucking Thrawn. Fuck off! I'm planning my flag in a goddamn sand on that one.
01:58:05
Speaker
Um, no, but I love these movies. Um, I'm, I'm very, if not as excited, more excited to talk about revolutions next month. Cause that one is your favorite of these three, right? It is my favorite of these three. And it's also, it's the only matrix movie in the entire franchise as of now that I have not come around to say that I like.
Enjoying The Matrix Revolutions
01:58:27
Speaker
You we should we should watch it together again. I think I'm hoping it changes. OK. All right. It's if you're going to OK, listener, if you're going to watch revolutions before our episode drops next month ish.
01:58:48
Speaker
There's a whole lot of nothing that you're gonna be interested in for the middle 45 minutes, all saying. I get it. Bring some friends over, bring some friends over, come to some of your favorite adult beverages, your favorite adult smokeables, edibles, whatever your drug of choice is, if you are of a legal age. I hope you are. We swear a lot. Yeah, get your red pills out.
01:59:19
Speaker
That middle 45 minutes of the invasion of Zion is... Not a lot of product placement in the movie. Despite how much product placement the movie got in the real world.
01:59:36
Speaker
I want that fucking cell phone still. It's a bit of a rough ride, but once you hook back up with Neo and Trinity in the back half, you're in safe hands. I promise you, it will be a great ride from there on out. Oh God. I hope I feel different come next month.
02:00:01
Speaker
All right. Well, we'll be we'll be contentious about that. I'm excited. I'll be. I'll be Ella.
Hosts' Social Media and Projects
02:00:06
Speaker
You can find me at the drawn without ref on Instagram and that other one. I find my my other stuff on Ella Cheserie dot weebly dot com Ella C E S A R I dot weebly dot com. You can find this podcast anywhere you get your podcast. Check out my other podcast, Mystery Shack. Look back all about Gravity Falls on pipe dream podcast dot com. We're on Zencaster and all those other good stuff. What about you, Hope?
02:00:30
Speaker
I am at Hope Ligner on most social media platforms. I think my account on that other one actually got wholesale deleted because I had pronouns in my bio. Yeah, I don't.
02:00:46
Speaker
Fucking no or care But you can find me on there. I also do my other podcast high on cartoons With my good good friend Bex. We're currently going through DuckTales 2017. It's it's a lot of fucking fun We just dropped as of the recording of this episode our longest episode ever. Thanks, Steven
02:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's a 22 minute television show. We talk about it for two hours and 40 minutes. Fucking amazing. But that's that's where I'm at. All right. Well, and I guess that's a wrap for The Matrix Reloaded. Yes, we made it.
02:01:28
Speaker
by the skin of our teeth. Ergo, you should concordantly check out the rest of this podcast and look forward to the next episode. And what's that thing we say at the end? Love is the genesis of everything. Goodbye.