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The Matrix Revolutions (2003) is a very Third Movie
79 Plays1 year ago
Ella and Hope talk about Agent Smith, Sad Morpheus, boring middle acts, loose references to Norse mythology, some truly godawful puns, Agent Smith, and one of the greatest fight sequences of all time. ASATO MA SAD GOMYA!
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Transcript
Inevitability and The Sensation of Being 'The One'
00:00:21
Speaker
I'd like to share a revelation with
00:00:32
Speaker
Let me tell you why you're here. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. 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 normal. Hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.
00:01:04
Speaker
My name is Trinity and you better take your hands off of me.
New Podcast Format and Future Series Ideas
00:01:12
Speaker
Welcome. Welcome back to the matrix reclamation. The podcast where we, this is a bold, this is a bold new intro format. Captain's law podcast. Welcome back to star trekking.
00:01:36
Speaker
Yes. That's our next series after we get done with The Matrix.
Matrix Revolutions: Title and Character Reflections
00:01:43
Speaker
Just all of Star Trek. It'll take us 40 years. Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as podcasts. Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson? Podcasting in on you? Yes.
00:02:07
Speaker
God there's so many good Smith quotes in this movie. I fucking love this movie This should have been called Smith the movie. I think Matrix Revolutions is actually a very poor title It's funny because he's not really in that much of it
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, I guess comparatively yeah, but like I mean he's a lot bigger He's like the ham has finally broken through like this. Yeah, well slow burn ham like
00:02:39
Speaker
with culminating in like the greatest evil laugh of all time. Yeah. It's just only halfway through. It's just the best. But yeah, he's only in like two minutes in the middle of it.
Impact of Matrix Movies During High School
00:02:53
Speaker
And then he's in the last like 10.
00:02:57
Speaker
And it's like, and that's it. We're here to talk about the Matrix revolutions. It's a film from 2003, much like most of the rest of the Matrix franchise. You said that last episode and it really depressed me and I'm like, Oh my God. I don't know. I think it's more impressive.
00:03:20
Speaker
Well, considering I was in junior year of high school when all of this came out, like, well, and then senior year of high school, it was just so surreal for me having that revelation. It's been 20 years. Oh, no. So, but that's my own bullshit. That's my own aging bullshit. Uh, it'll happen to you. Yeah. What's your, uh, your history with, with this one in the, in the series? I think we kind of alluded to it before, but.
00:03:50
Speaker
Well, my love of The Matrix got worse in senior year of high school. As you recall, I watched the movie with my friends, reloaded in May of 2003 and turned to my friends afterwards, all excited. And it's like, that was awesome. And literally all of my friends were, that was awful. So it was a lot of arm twisting to get them to go back to the theater opening weekend, November 5th, 2003.
00:04:20
Speaker
Um, yeah, because they were all just saying, it's like, we're good. That's not too bad of a gap. Right. Six months. Yeah. I mean, that's a quick turnaround.
Matrix Release Timelines and Movie Sequels
00:04:30
Speaker
That's a little bit faster than I think, uh, I'd have to look that up. Actually. Is that faster or slower than back to the future? Two and three can't remember now. Huh? Either way. I'm pretty sure those are from different years.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, that would make sense. Whatever. I think it was the same time of two different years, if I'm correct. That would make sense. We are going to talk about Lego sequels and second movies. Only six months for a cliffhanger that honestly
00:05:11
Speaker
like I feel like you could have waited a year or longer like it's not like oh my god I need to know what happens next you know I mean also considering like the the gap between the types of movies that Back to the Future 2 and 3 are 2 is very much a movie about time travel and 3 is a Western
00:05:37
Speaker
Apparently it was also too fun. Huh. Weird, okay. Well, quicker turnaround than Lord of the Rings, anyway. Yeah, Star Wars, you know. Oh God, well, Star Wars is its own thing that I will get very angry about if we talk about too much. Well, that's what being a Star Wars fan is. I mean, yeah. But only I like it the right way.
00:06:05
Speaker
Right. I just, I mean, I know we talked about it last time, but you know, the, where we left off, you know, reloaded feels a little tacked on, like just does not really, I don't know.
Matrix Revolutions: Payoff and Standalone Struggles
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's on a shot of an upside down shot of a guy that you don't really know and recognize as that guy that you're supposed to be worried about. Like.
00:06:28
Speaker
Oh God. I think when I rewatched these movies with my dad two years ago, I'm pretty sure his note on Reloaded was, who the fuck was that guy? Yeah. So like, yeah. Yeah. I love my dad very much, but these were not his movies.
00:06:47
Speaker
The broad strokes of revolutions for me, I think, is that the third act-y-ness of this film never really stops. This is the one that feels the least like a story that can stand on its own. I think Reloaded is technically part one of the story, but that is still a complete story. It's about finding the source and going in and figuring out
00:07:12
Speaker
And that's a complete story that just happens to have a cliffhanger ending and a through line of the sentinels are drilling and this is what's going to happen. And then Revolutions is entirely payoff. And yeah, it's like it's like the third act of a single movie extended to a movie length. Yeah. Yeah. Reloaded had its own internal payoffs, but like Revolutions doesn't have any of its own setups, really.
Personal Obsession and Deep Dive into The Matrix
00:07:39
Speaker
Um, which has not stopped this movie from being my favorite of the three. So there are, there are a few, but I think they're too subtle to really call them like story. Like just speaking on my own personal history with this movie, I was, I went so deep on the mate. Like I was a vaguely casual fan going into reloaded. I emerged a super fan.
00:08:09
Speaker
And I went hard on The Matrix for the next six months. So I walked out of this movie, Revolutions, in November. That was the greatest thing of all time. We immediately toddled down the mall passageway to the FYE, where I picked up a copy of the soundtrack.
00:08:29
Speaker
We'll put it this way your text tone that you have on your phone for me is the end credit. God here. Yeah, hang on Yeah here I'm gonna go. I'm gonna edit in stingers. No. No, I'm gonna edit in stingers. I've already got that as an audio file separate But yeah, you might as well be the cold open that might as well be the cold open I Don't want to like punish our listeners
00:08:57
Speaker
Well, they they clicked on something that said The Matrix Revolutions. They know what they're getting. I mean, that that is fair. We can play it like a jump scare. Yeah. Yeah. If you've gotten this far in the episode, thanks. And I'm sorry. Congratulations. Surprised to see us. God almighty. I I think it's really that I probably. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
Oh no, sorry. There's a bit of a lag thanks to the recording setup. I'm not sure what that is.
00:09:33
Speaker
As far as my history with it, I'm pretty sure I just watched this for the first time around the same time that I watched, reloaded for the first time. And it was easily my least favorite. Easily I did not like this. I came away, this was the one, reloaded the first time I was like, that was half good. And then this one I'm like, that was not very good at all. I'm sorry. I was so taken by
00:10:03
Speaker
Just how boring a lot of it is. God, that's wonderful. There are bits in it that are some of the most interesting things that they do in
Critique of Action Sequences and CGI in Revolutions
00:10:12
Speaker
the series. I still felt that way at the time. But at the time, I felt like it was just so drowned out by all of the kind of nothing that happens. Yeah, there's a whole lot of nothing in this movie.
00:10:25
Speaker
subsequent viewings uh you know the second time was with you and that time i i came away a little bit more positive on it still i i just couldn't couldn't get into it have i stockholm syndromeed this movie for you like you watched it with me and i'm just like so ape shit enthusiastic for it but there are acquired tastes like i mean
00:10:59
Speaker
I mean, that is fair. Like, uh, uh, if you're familiar with that, uh, emo Phillips joke where the two people are talking and they're going down the list of like, yeah, so I'm this type of Christian. Oh, I'm the same thing. I go to this church while I go to the, and then further and further down the line until you get to like, no, it was second century reformed Protestant. And it's like, die heathen. It's like, Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:16
Speaker
I've been called an acquired taste so I got it.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. But no, and then this time I watched it for the podcast with my friend, Nyla, who watched it for the first time with me. I was like, you know, just kind of talking about that infamous middle, really, is that middle unbroken 45 minutes of robot battle with characters that you don't really care about at all. And that
00:11:51
Speaker
killed the movie for me previously but this time i can i can let that slide because nyla was just saying like well it's cool right like i was like yeah it is you know what is cool uh and i think it's that goes a long way i took that i took the coolness of it for granted because it's the wachowskis but i think
00:12:12
Speaker
when you really step back and look at it in context of other, you know, sci-fi action, it's really cool. It does not, you know, it feels perfectly matrix. The look of this movie is something that I've always been an absolute sucker for. I mean, I think I've mentioned, like, the aesthetics of the big APU mech robot gun suits. I'm just...
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, they get in the getaway from her, you bitch, machines. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, hey, another one of my favorite sci-fi movies is Alien. So of course I'm predisposed to like these weird fucking mech suits, only now they've got giant, crazy machine guns that have the most interesting reload mechanics I've ever seen. Hey, Trinity, you ever get mistaken for a man? No, do you?
00:13:09
Speaker
Oh, God, that's rough. Fucking fast quiz. But yeah, it's yeah, it's like fucking it's Squid War versus APU mech suits. It's awesome. Squid War is my favorite Spongebob character.
00:13:31
Speaker
Um, I think, oh God, the first thing, the first thing that I noticed about this movie, every time I watch it and it's the first note I have on my list of notes is hot doctor. Oh, great. Wait, one more time. What's here? What's here? It's hot. Of course, the doctor who operates on, who is, who was overseeing Neo and Bayon as they're in their comas.
00:13:56
Speaker
is so fine. So, so queer and so fine. Like, she's got like a shortcut and she's so cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I can't disagree. Like this, this movie was made by two, uh, uh, uh, uh, questionably closeted trans, uh, women who I think are also married to women, I think. So like, yeah, we like the lesbians around here.
00:14:26
Speaker
God almighty, all right, who played- Yeah, who played, I don't even know the character's name. Nope, let me, I'm on IMDB. The character's name is Maggie because all of the characters in this ship, the Mjolnir, are named after types of guns played by an actress. I was about to say, wait, that sounds like a normal name for the Matrix. I was like, oh, it's a gun, got it. No, I like- Is there a Tommy? The captain's name is Roland.
00:14:55
Speaker
There is an AK. There is a... There should be a Tommy and he should talk like a mobster.
00:15:03
Speaker
God, that would be so great. Like that would be the other ship for like our cosplay themed matrix ships, right? Like there's the 30s. Yeah. Yeah. I think Tommy, the guy on the gun ship, gun themed name ship, Tommy would be played by Joey pants from the first movie, but like in a fake mustache. So you don't realize it's the same actor. Oh my God.
00:15:28
Speaker
That would be perfect. Yes, absolutely. I'm entirely down for that. Actress named... So, Essie Davis, if you're looking for pictures of her online, Hot Doctor from The Matrix Revolutions was also in the Babadook, apparently. And the Assassin's Creed movie. That's exciting. That is exciting. But yes.
00:15:58
Speaker
I missed a note the last time that I had, and it's just by way of explanation, because I realized it was absent in the opening frames of this movie. In the opening frame of The Matrix Revolutions, it's Warner Brothers, The Big Shield, a time Warner company.
00:16:18
Speaker
But on The Matrix Reloaded, and obviously it wouldn't be on The Matrix because that came out in 1999, but in Reloaded, it's Warner Bros. and AOL Time Warner Company, which is why I use the AOL sound clips in the theme songs to this show, because Warner Bros. needs to remember its mistakes. God damn it. That's no Matrix of them.
00:16:44
Speaker
Wow, so I know we were just talking about the getaway from her you bitch machines, but apparently I see Davis is set to Appear in an upcoming Alien series.
Oracle's New Appearance and Narrative Adjustments
00:16:56
Speaker
Oh Shit. Oh my god. It's all connected. That's amazing I have no idea what that's gonna be but I'm fucking down for like a series of years years before the first stop making prequels
00:17:24
Speaker
Anyway, see, well, we have a pretty good sequel here. Well, pretty good. We have a decent sequel here to get to. My other immediate horny note, though I will say definitely not as horny as... Not as horny as Reloaded as a whole, but we do get just straight up a BDSM club. Straight up a kink club. They get all of the horny out of the way early. Yes.
00:17:42
Speaker
Why do we keep making prequels?
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, most of it. And then, yeah, so we set up that Neo, they're scanning Neo's brain and he's giving off brainwaves that are similar to those who are plugged into the Matrix, even though he's not plugged in. And then we say he's in... What is this station called? The ship they are in is called the Mjolnir, but nobody can pronounce Mjolnir in 2003.
00:18:17
Speaker
when he wakes up. Oh, Mobile Avenue. My apologies. Mobile Avenue. When you rearrange the letters, what do you get? This is the beginning of the end of subtlety for the Wachowskis. They never had it. I mean, by the time you get to our resurrections where they just kind of
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they lay it on pretty thick in some cases, don't they? Considering how deep I am typically in this movie, it's like, I forget most people don't know it to that level or what level people know this movie to, so. Yeah. This is the one that most people I know has not seen, so. Wait, so they've seen Reloaded and not this?
00:19:10
Speaker
So many people I know that were like my age in 2003 saw Reloaded, thought it sucked, and never went back. So... I think that really speaks to how weak that cliffhanger is, because I feel like even if... Oh, yeah. Even if you didn't care for it, a lot of times in stories it's like, well, I just want to see how it plays out. I mean, that's how we all felt about the Star Wars sequels, right? So... I mean, yeah. Ugh.
00:19:37
Speaker
Um, so he wakes up in this limbo subway station. Um, he wakes up to find this, this little girl staring down creepily at him. Uh, and her name is Sati and she is just the creepiest, sweetest little girl. Yeah. I honestly only creepy for that one part.
Ramakandra's Family and Unique Circumstances
00:20:00
Speaker
I think after that she's, she's a normal kid. Um, but it's also that doesn't like, she already know his name.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, everybody already knows who he is. And by everybody, I mean Satie knows him, her dad, who is also in the train station with her, and also her mom. And I have to say,
00:20:24
Speaker
Ramakandra, Sati's dad, is probably my favorite character in all of The Matrix. I love him. I love that for you. Please say more. Please explain your niche favorite character. Okay. He's the power plant systems operator program. I actually had to take notes for this episode for the first time even because I have all of this information usually on tap.
00:20:46
Speaker
But the Matrix Wikipedia is garbage for Ramacandra. Justice for Ramacandra. On the Matrix Wikipedia, it has his name. It has his picture. He's a cutie. And it has his purpose listed as not occupation. On the Matrix Wikipedia, it's purpose. Because it's purpose that drives us. Purpose that drives us, yeah. Oh, God.
00:21:15
Speaker
but it lists his purpose as none. I'm like, God damn it. I mean, I don't think he's without purpose. Yeah. Yeah. That's rude to Ramakundra, my dude. He's a family man. That's his whole thing. He is a power plant systems manager for recycling operations. Now,
00:21:40
Speaker
I love that for him for many reasons. So part of why I love Ramachandra is because his purpose in this scene, before we get too far down this rabbit hole, is that him and his wife, who I did not write her job title down, but he is like- He's like an app designer or something. Yeah, she's like software engineer or something like that. She makes Candy Crush.
00:22:08
Speaker
Um, but Ramachandra specifically and his wife, two programs living in the matrix have fallen in love together and had a child. And now the purpose of this programally.
00:22:26
Speaker
It's, oh god, terrible. Pro-Grammel. That one didn't taste good. No, it's got a bad mouthfeel. Bad mouthfeel. But the purpose in this scene is that...
00:22:44
Speaker
Sati is a program without purpose and without purpose in the Matrix is bad and the choice that she has is to either go to return to the source and then just be deleted probably because she has no purpose or
00:23:04
Speaker
Uh, the parents, the second choice, the parents have decided to, uh, turn her into a renegade program. And the only way to do that is to go through the Merovingian who can get her onto the black market with like the Oracle and Smith and serif. And I mean, the way I imagine it is that, is that Ramachandra and his wife.
00:23:26
Speaker
They kind of live behind they live behind the scenes right like they live in like the back rooms where the architect would be right there and I kind of their middle management for the matrix itself and what we're saying and their daughter they're trying to send their daughter out into the matrix where like the people live.
00:23:45
Speaker
Right, exactly. So what we are seeing in this scene is like the mental matrix projections into human figures of just programs. That's what we're seeing when we see the Oracle, the architect, et cetera, et cetera. I'm the licensed wizard. I pop up when you open a new program for the first time. Right, right, exactly. The key maker. I'm the terms and conditions. Everybody ignores me.
00:24:14
Speaker
I also, so can I assume that, what is it, power plant for recycling? Power plant, let me pull it up because I want to respect the job title. Power plant systems manager for recycling operations. And that has its own horrifying and fascinating revelations in and of itself.
00:24:34
Speaker
So what's your question? Yes, because power plant would imply it's the bank of humans that are the power plants. Right, exactly. Recycling, I imagine, would refer to they puree the dead to feed it intravenously into the living, right? Right, exactly. I can't think of... I had this revelation a while back and I can't think of any other options that are less horrifying because, like, what else do the machines have that means the cycle? Because they set that up in the first movie. Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And fed back to the living. We see the liquefied dead being... And it makes it thematically fit that he decides to stop that cycle and have a child of his own in this loving way rather than this fucked up cycle of like dead in the living. That's kind of where it gets worse because you and I are living in the present and we've both seen resurrections.
00:25:33
Speaker
And we know that later on down the line, Ramachandra, who is again just a systems manager at recycling operations, he's middle management.
00:25:46
Speaker
Sometime between reloaded and resurrections, he gets a promotion and designs the Anomalium, the custom horror pods that Neo and Trinity are kept in, in the distant future of this story. So he didn't retire until after that.
00:26:09
Speaker
So he had a kid and then went back to work. So he's going to go back to work. He brought him back for one last job. Part of why I love Ramakandra is because he's really almost the first true inkling that there are just people on the other side of this war. People who aren't fighting in the war, who just have day jobs.
00:26:38
Speaker
They were there and they have no saying they were literally programs to do. Yeah, exactly. And and they have made their peace with their role in life and they are in love with which has its own.
00:26:54
Speaker
thing machines can love. And they had a fucking child. I'm just talking a big game about putting karma into the world. And then, you know, oh, my God. Well, that's all. All right, buddy. Let me let me get you to design me two torture chambers. And he's like, yeah, that'll give me good karma.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's just everything about Ramachandra from a science fiction standpoint, delights and fascinates me to no fucking end. And it's also kind of the first time, maybe not the first time, but it's a major time where
00:27:29
Speaker
I guess it's not really a religious outlook, but it's a philosophical outlook that is not based in Christianity or, you know. Yeah, exactly. Like religion and philosophy. Part of why I truly love the sequels more than the first movie is because it delves into all of the other weirder belief systems. I mean, we're going to get to it, but this weirder, but non, you know, did I say weirder? Yeah, my apologies. There's my fucking.
00:27:58
Speaker
a Quaker upbringing. You know, they're all they're all pretty weird. They're all I think they're all the same amount of weird. Take a step back. Some are treated like they're normal when they're when it's the world. God, yeah, I'm literally a trans woman on a podcast talking about the matrix breaking preconceived cycles. And there's me falling for the old goddamn trap again. There we go. Son of a bitch.
00:28:26
Speaker
We free minds. But yeah, you're getting into like the non-Abrahamic religions, finally. I mean, the tail end of this movie, the language in the soundtrack is in Sanskrit, taken from the Hindu Upanishads.
00:28:50
Speaker
which we're gonna get to. That's another major reason I love this fucking movie, the fucking soundtrack. But-
00:29:02
Speaker
They bring back a bit of that reloaded charm in that, uh, well, you see, we're trying to do this thing. And in order to do that thing, we got to talk to this guy and do this thing. And he works for this guy. And in this case, they have to get Sati onto the train, uh, because they have an agreement with the train man and the train man works for the Merovingian, who is the guy who can make her a renegade program.
00:29:25
Speaker
And that leads us into the part of this opening that I find way more interesting and engaging, which is Trinity, Serif, the Oracle's sidekick, and Morpheus breaking into the Merovingian's kink club in order to save Neo.
00:29:43
Speaker
Well, first they go to the Oracle and the Oracle has a new face because unfortunately, the actress from the first two movies has passed at this point. Yeah, and it's an entry and it's a rare case of the plot writing that into it. Yeah.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think we mentioned in the first recaps, but she's played like Gloria Foster in one and two and Mary Alice in this one here. And they both knock it out of the park. I mean, it's so hard to beat Gloria Foster for the energy that she brings to that. But she doesn't feel like a wildly different person.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, if I'm remembering correctly Griffin Newman from blank check his take on that was like they should have cast like an Entirely different actor with entirely different energy like his take was like hire a 12 year old Japanese boy or something like that so I was actually thinking like you could just do like her like imagine her but younger cast someone like that like the
00:30:54
Speaker
because they rebooted her essentially they say right essentially yeah it was caught aiding the enemy and she was punished and she had to you know the architect basically punished her for uh yeah yeah they didn't oh god
00:31:13
Speaker
The implications about a robot like society and development is just fascinating to me. Well, we built them. So it's like, I learned it by watching you.
00:31:29
Speaker
God, ain't that the truth? Yeah. Um, I mean, I'm so excited to talk about just AI in general, like the Asimov concept. And then you've got like artificial intelligence. Uh, we should watch AI artificial intelligence. Wow. My mouth just got away from me there.
00:31:56
Speaker
It's late and I'm pretty high for this. How is that any different than any other time? God almighty, this fucking movie. Where were we? They were saving, yes, yeah.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yes. So they got to go to the Oracle then who tells them to go to the Merovingian to get the train man. So they try and chase the train man where we get a bunch of, uh, product placement, advertisement billboards for Samsung, tasty wheat, power aid. Um, a lot of fun, a lot of fun, a lot of fun movie tie-ins with this. Um, I love that it has like a million watches, the train man. God, I love that. Right. He's such a good scuzz ball character too. Like, yeah.
00:32:46
Speaker
And although he does have a pretty raw line that's down here, I'm God. Oh yeah, no. He owns that line for all it's worth. Like he got that line and he's like, oh yeah. If you've ever been on public transit, the public transit workers really are like that.
00:33:06
Speaker
Um, so then they got to go to the Merovingians nightclub, which is underground and it's called hell because of course at this point we've abandoned all pretenses of subtlety. Um, well the Merovingians, his friends are the monster mash. So that they are, they are guy were most of them died. I was really hoping like throwing the
00:33:33
Speaker
I don't think we ever like, we never saw a body, but at least they were like disabled for the rest of that fight. I guess they were involved in some explosion or something. Yeah. Um, but yeah, then they have another great line, which is, uh, there's going to be a girl for coat check. And, uh, for lucky only one man checking weapons. What if we're unlucky, there will be many men.
00:33:59
Speaker
It's a good line. And Serif is doing like the most interesting check on his guns that I've ever seen where he's like cocking them with single hands. It's like, oh, interesting. And then we have a fairly uninteresting fight scene.
00:34:14
Speaker
No, I disagree. I think, well, I think it starts off with a bang. I think it starts off with that poor, that poor code check girl just going, oh my God. And then, mercifully, they just shove her into the elevator. They don't actually kill her, which is uncharacteristically merciful of them because that scene where they break into the lobby in the first movie, they do not take prisoners. They really don't. But then again, I guess in that scene, everyone there was armed.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, I actually thought that fight scene in the weapons check room was actually really cool because they go on the ceiling and all that. I thought that was pretty visually interesting. Yeah, I like that as an idea. I just don't think they go that far with it. They don't... Nah, but it's quick enough. I think it's quick enough. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. And then we get all that interesting kink stuff happening in the actual plot. Oh my god.
00:35:07
Speaker
The nipple tweaking. The lighting is really cool. The harnesses. Yeah, the spanking. Oh, God. Yeah. It's all going on.
00:35:15
Speaker
Mm hmm. Then we get two iconic lines from Trinity, which are one is I don't have time for this shit, which later in the movie, I will start to agree with her. And then we have Trinity calling the Merovingian Merv, which is going to come up again in the fourth movie. And I. Oh, you're right. You could nickname. That's miserable. I love it. Yes. It's a good. Yeah, because the
00:35:46
Speaker
The Merovingian tries to send them on, like, another fetch quest for the eyes of the Oracle. And he's, like, lording it over to them. And then they have a really awesome kick-ass, tight little choreographed... Everybody's grabbing guns off of everybody else's little fistfight sequence that ends in a Mexican standoff with, like, 20 guns. Everybody's got guns to everybody else's head.
00:36:14
Speaker
I do have the rebuke of the fetch questness of reloaded. I'm just like, well, if you're going to, if you want to save your friend, you should bring me. No, no, fuck that. I'm just going to shoot you dead. Yes, yes. Very like the room of the wicked witch. Oh, God, it rules. Yeah. So, yeah, that immediately gets. Neo picked up from the train station.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yep. Which I do love when he tries to run through the train tunnel and ends up on the other side. It's so goofy. That's such a great fucking visual gag. I love that. And then he also tries to begin meditating to figure out a way out of there. And he imagines three looks like power lines. We get a very brief glimpse of that. Interesting. Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
And then Trinity picks him up, they make out. As they should. As they should. As they don't do enough in this movie.
00:37:25
Speaker
They really don't, they really don't. I mean, again, they're also so religiously fanatically devoted to the sunglasses. I feel like we could pop the shades off a little more often in these sequences to get some emotion to play through. It's not as bad, it's not as bad in this one, I will say. It's not as bad in this one as it is in religious. That's because there's not as much Matrix stuff in this movie. Yeah, that's it. And Neo actually, yeah, very rarely goes into the Matrix in this one.
00:37:53
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Like this, the opening sequence when, when Morpheus meet, uh, meets up with the Oracle again for the first time, it's the first time I think we've seen them truly interact.
00:38:05
Speaker
Morphe and he's got the sunglasses. Is that the first time? Yeah, it is the first time we've seen him interact and he keeps the shades on the whole time. Even though he popped them off briefly in the way last night, right? Isn't it the first time we see anybody other than Neo and serif interact with the, oh, if I'm remembering correctly, we get to see Niobe and ghost interact with the Oracle.
00:38:26
Speaker
in Enter the Matrix, the video game in 2003. Okay, technicalities, technicalities. But yes, for the populist audiences, yes, this is the first time. And the sunglasses stay on. And yet you said none of your friends watched this one.
00:38:48
Speaker
I had to twist arms to get my friends to go with me to the theaters. They saw it once and never again. Then there's a lot of stuff that happens that I don't remember until we see Smith again.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so this episode's gonna be wicked short compared to our previous two episodes because there's not as much to recap because so goddamn much of this movie is fight sequence. Yeah, we're talking about fight sequences that are about to happen.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So we get the next sequence is Neo meets up with the Oracle again, and she has some cryptic horse shit for him, which is my favorite. Everything that has a beginning has an end. Which is the line used in the poster for this movie, which I got to say that up for later, set up for later, too. And it's a set up for later. But.
00:39:49
Speaker
This movie had several bad posters, but it had one incredible one, which is of the line matrix, rain digital code falling, and then a line of code saying, everything that has a beginning has an end, and it's lighting up, and it's lit up the floor, the literal end of where the code can fall to, so. Yeah, I mean. That's pretty cool. What are the bad posters? The bad posters are just like,
00:40:18
Speaker
Oh, it's an APU, but it's got the digital rain on it. Oh, it's a bunch of agent Smith's, but it's got the digital rain on it. Oh, it's a concerned looking Neo and, or a concerned looking Morpheus and Trinity. And they've got the raincoat. It's like, it's not that interesting. I think it's false advertising to put Morpheus on the poster for this movie. Remember in the previous movies when Morpheus did stuff? Uh, none of that.
00:40:41
Speaker
Morpheus, poor Lawrence Fishburne, he's given nothing to do here. He's given nothing to do and it sucks because what I realized last time about Reloaded that I actually have come to love is that it totally, by the end, his character is completely turned on his head because Neo, the last thing in that movie is Neo telling him, prophecy's bullshit. Prophecy's made up, I'm not the one. Yeah, he gets like,
00:41:06
Speaker
There have been several ones before and they've all been defeated. It's not what you think it is. And he has this crisis of faith that they could have explored and developed and gotten him to learn to believe in himself rather than just in Neo. And he doesn't do anything. He really does not do anything. The only real acting he does in this movie is towards the very end when he puts the gun down as the machines are waiting.
00:41:35
Speaker
Right. And I mean, he has his little moments with Niobe, I guess, which is paying off, um, reloaded, but it's just, it's not, it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't fit the character who the entire first movie's climax is all about rescuing because we've come to love him so much. And then, and this movie, the climax of the trilogy doesn't really give him anything.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it sucks. Especially, I guess his next and final best performance as Morpheus was in that commercial. What, like, yes, for the car. Yeah. Yeah. God, that that's frustrating. Whatever. He's in three of the four John Wicks and he fucking rules in those are enough.
00:42:26
Speaker
Um, there's a lot of arguing about ships. There's a lot of arguing about how many ships to take and leave behind and, uh, who goes in what ship. It's like planning a carpool, like the most annoying people you know. Yeah, pretty much. There's some angry, there's some angry, uh, minivan chat between, uh, Niobe and Roland, which is also a type of gun. I had to Google that one. Um.
00:42:52
Speaker
because Neo realizes that he needs a ship, and Niobe opts to give him and Trinity her ship, the Logos, which in Latin means logic or reason, for them to take to the machine city, because Neo has decided it's time to visit the source. Well, isn't that what the Oracle told them to do?
00:43:19
Speaker
Um. Yes and no quiet. Also, is it? Wait, so is the source the hallway of doors where you find the architect or is the source the city of the machine? The the source would be like the actual machine city. Oh, in the real world. But I guess in the real world. Well, I guess when Neo is going to see the architects, he is plugged into something that is physically located in the machine city, I guess.
00:43:50
Speaker
Well, no, because he's physically plugged into the real world in the Nebuchadnezzar when he sees the architect. Yeah, he's accessing the matrix. He's accessing like... Right. Yeah, they're hijacked in on a frequency, but they're not in the machine city. The hard drive that houses the architect, I imagine, is located in the machine city.
00:44:14
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah, like the old art is probably just on a floppy disk. Like that's his entire like being. But it's like an eight and a half inch floppy. Yeah. It's like one of the big ones. He's on a reel to reel. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely marvelous. A computer that sings Daisy Bell from IBM. Oh my God. Incredible.
00:44:42
Speaker
Uh, it's a, it's a, it's a Babbage, uh, adding machine. The Matrix 1.0 is an abacus. Yeah. Abacus is a great Matrix character name.
00:44:56
Speaker
Oh my God, you're right. Wow. Okay. We can just populate our own, uh, matrix. Uh, is, is that going to be an ongoing, let's make that an ongoing project for the podcast where we populate our own matrix ship. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Uh, Abacus is Abacus the captain.
00:45:18
Speaker
No, I think abacus would be like the tech guy abacus would be like the the captain Okay, all right, so we'll fill out the rest of the crew later So but yes, so the the plot as it goes for literally the rest of the movie is Morpheus
00:45:46
Speaker
Niobe and that crew all have to go back to Zion. The people that are already in Zion have to shoot a bunch of guns, add a bunch of robots, and Neo and Trinity have to fly to the machine city. Those are the three plot lines that we have to follow for the rest of the movie. Yeah, and really only one of those is a plot line.
00:46:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, which is I think because of the way this movie is structured is why I end up loving it so much because we really do spend the back 45 minutes with just Neo, essentially. At the cost of having to spend the middle 45 minutes with no one that we really know.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's it's a little rough. So I actually did take a little bit of a stopwatch to this movie. And I was texting you about it the other night. So I'm just going to use that as my notes. So the way the rest of this movie breaks down is first off, Neil and Trinity have to fight off Bain, who is the obviously Smith bad guy. Yeah, well, and it's obviously Smith, though, huge credit.
00:46:55
Speaker
Huge huge huge fucking credit to the ability to like It really does feel like Dane is possessed by the spirit of of
00:47:10
Speaker
of Smith, you know, of Hugo Weaving. He is very legitimately doing an incredible Agent Smith impression, I have to say. His name is Ian Bliss, Australian actor. There it is. And yeah, he does a fantastic Hugo Weaving, like even his eyebrows kind of arch in the way that Hugo Weavings do as Smith.
00:47:34
Speaker
It's just fantastic to the point where Like his performance is almost too good to the point where Neo seems stupid for not recognizing the Smith in him. Yeah It's like so on the nose Wow, okay his in bliss his IMDb profile picture is him giving a big ol thumbs up and a cheesy grin from the release of this movie Oh
00:48:00
Speaker
Uh, known for the Matrix Reloaded, the Matrix Revolutions, Stealth from 2005 and Superman Returns. I mean, in the, in Reloaded, he just kind of acts kind of ominous. And in this one, just even that scene with the hot doctor where he's just saying like, what if I blew the EMT? You know, like he's, he's getting very unhinged. Um, unfortunately he does kill the hot doctor. Uh, very sad. He does kill, he does kill Maggie. RIP. We hardly knew the E.
00:48:33
Speaker
but he uh no he's amazing and it's like imagine that terror of like somebody that you barely know knows your dead name like you're just calling oh my god I hadn't thought of it like that oh my fuck yeah it's like the first time he says it that he doesn't eat that neo doesn't put it together oh my god that's oh god I hate that you're right yeah
00:49:01
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I saw a fucking road sign earlier today with my dead name on it. And I had a brief moment where I'm like, yeah, why does the street know my what's happened? Yeah, it's scary. Um, and yeah, so he has to, he has to fight off ban, uh, with Trinity while they're, they're flying toward the machine city. Cause I guess he, he stowed away right in the ship.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, he stowed away on the logos and he waited until the hammer took off, piloted by Naomi, the diversions of the three storylines. Storylines, the storyline and the two distractions.
00:49:41
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah so you know what let's circle that's gonna be the most exciting part of talking about this movie like just the this the the neo smith trinity storyline so let's bypass that real fast and talk about the other two fucking storylines which we're gonna get out of the way inside like five minutes
00:49:59
Speaker
The Matrix Revolutions is like a sandwich where like the meat and the jam and the stuff inside is like the best stuff you've ever had and then the pieces of bread are like the thickest, driest, like stiffest pieces of bread you've ever had and they're bland. It's like Wonder Bread, yeah.
00:50:21
Speaker
So just based on the stopwatch that I took to this movie, the loose stopwatch, the battle for Zion begins at minute 58. The EMP ending the battle of Zion detonates at an hour 21. And we cut back to Neo and Trinity at an hour 25. And we're basically with them for the rest of the two hours, uh, minus the eight minutes of credits. So we do have to, the whole boring middle chunk of
00:50:51
Speaker
Oh, wait, one more time. Sorry. I was going to say we do briefly. We have we check in with Smith, like Smith Smith amassing more power in The Matrix, right? Like at some point during we get like, yeah, we get like a two minute break leading into that, where the Oracle is ambushed by Smith. Yeah, he and one of my favorite in the film. It's honestly one of my favorite scenes where really?
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah, Smith bursting into the Oracle's idyllic apartment that we saw from the first movie.
00:51:27
Speaker
and saying just great and powerful oracle, we need it last. Again, those Wizard of Oz analogies, like what Cypher used. And of course, I guess they're allowed to use it. Oh my God, and he's in the Emerald City. Oh shit. Yeah, shit he is. Then there's the great lion, you are a bastard. You would know, mom.
00:51:50
Speaker
Oh, you know the the architect is the father of the matrix the oracles the mother as established and reloaded and then she sends out sati and then Smith comes in and then another Smith comes in and
00:52:06
Speaker
She says, what have you done with Satie? And the Smith says, cookies need love like everything does, which is exactly what she told her earlier. And it's that moment of realization that he got her. He amassed her into his army of himself and then topped off with the iconic laugh and the iconic Smith face when he makes that evil laugh.
00:52:28
Speaker
after god almighty please post that to the social post that face to the social medias for this episode new episode of the podcast today
00:52:42
Speaker
He goes the full bug eyes and the sunglasses come off and the mouth build of the laugh. Yeah, I need to I need to rip that into its own MP3. I'm going to download that like right fucking now. Holy shit. Then we check back at the the humans are of Zion are preparing for battle. And who else worms his way back in a movie with a fucking kid?
00:53:11
Speaker
Ugh, Kid. Kid. Yeah, let's talk about the Battle of Zion for a hot minute because there's really not much going on in Storyline C. There's this vague character arc between Kid and who is the Commander Locke? Not Locke Mifune. Mifune is the cool guy. Locke is the bastard.
00:53:36
Speaker
No, but doesn't lock the one who is like yelling at kid where he basically there's this really fucking cringe moment where The commander says how old are you kid? He says 18 sir. He says could have told me 16. I don't believe that you're too young get out of here It's like when he looks like he's 25
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ask for 18 or. Yeah. You really can't suspend the disbelief enough for that one there. It's like like the guy who played mouse had that youthful look in the. He really did. Yeah. I don't want to fault the guy because he's just playing the script that he was given. It's a real lapse in casting decision. Yeah. Yeah. It's rough.
00:54:25
Speaker
Um, but yeah, there's that whole thing, but that is captain Mafune. Um, because I quite like that dude. Uh, uh, let me pull up Watson who was, who played kid was born in 1977. Right. So he was what? Oh, like, yeah, he was about 25. Right. When, when, uh, 25, 26. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
But yeah, then we get the battle itself, which again, I've realizing it is cool, objectively cool. And I can't fault it for that, you know, that's, and also, you know.
00:55:05
Speaker
minus some bits of the fight that Neo has at the climax of the film, the CG, because it's all these big machinery, it doesn't have that weird rubberiness that a lot of the fights in Reloaded do that are like that hand-to-hand combat.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah, so we're lacking a lot in this fight sequence. And because it is basically a 20 minute fight sequence, we're lacking a lot of matrix. What? What? When you say matrix, you think of literally not the matrix. Yeah, exactly. So we're not going to get bullet time. We're not going to get like crazy kung fu slow mo wire work because, yeah, it's the real world.
00:55:48
Speaker
which is a bold choice to make 20 minutes featuring largely characters you don't care about. I liked the lesbians, but how if I know their names? Yeah, I know, right? The lesbians were good. We want more of the lesbians. Damn it.
00:56:07
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, it's like I, I could skip that and you know what? I'm going to let this play in the background and I'm going to burn a quick episode of parks and rec right in the middle of this movie. And, uh, I, I won't have missed much. Unfortunately, go to the bathroom, refill your popcorn, like time of the movie. Like, yeah. Yeah. Like as much as I love the aesthetics of the APUs and the crazy squid war, um,
00:56:34
Speaker
They're not called APs in this, though, are they? Armored personnel, armored personnel units. Yes. From I thought that was a term from aliens is power loader. OK, I think I got mixed up. Yeah. The the the gun things in Avatar, the bad one.
00:56:59
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And as opposed to the good avatar of the last airbender, which notably does not have guns. Amplified Mobility Platform is what they're called in the world of the shitty avatar. So AMP. So APU, AMP, power loader. Let's call the whole thing off.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah, they're fucking they're fucking dogs. Yeah, they're the getaway from her you bitch machines. God, is it bad that out of anything, I want Ripley's sneakers from that movie so bad. She's got these wicked like knee high Reeboks. Oh, it's just like amazing. You can buy them on eBay for thousands of dollars. I mean, there's a lot anyway.
00:57:56
Speaker
Um, but yeah, um, and during the battle of Zion, we're getting cross cutting to, uh, Naomi piling, Naomi, wow. Piloting the hammer through the access tunnels to Zion. And we finally get the, uh, because they needed to get an EMP back to Zion to fend off the machines.
00:58:26
Speaker
because, oh, oh, because the reasoning for that is because Bane blew an EMP early and knocked out literally all of the other ships. So only the hammer. Yeah, exactly. Which is, it's cute that it's named the Mjolnir because it was cast away from Zion and then its final act was to return to Zion and blow a big electrical discharge. So that's kind of cute. That's kind of cute.
00:58:53
Speaker
Speaking of those non-Abrahamic religions, we're getting some Norse shit in there, damn it. That's true, that's true. Another thing that the Battle of Zion made me think about is, why isn't there a Matrix theme park ride?
00:59:10
Speaker
I think it would be like a great like, you know, addition to I guess universal or something like it would fit right in I think you could go, especially just when they're flying through the machine city later even like a motion simulator through the world of the matrix or something like I just it's it just seems so ripe for for a thrill ride of some kind.
00:59:31
Speaker
That would make sense. I mean, shit, I could see like a Star Tours ride thing being made out of like the interior of the netta kineser where you're being chased by sentinels and shit. So yeah, I could see that ride without you would definitely want to have part of the ride take you into the matrix. So you would want to obviously incorporate that somehow. But
00:59:54
Speaker
Uh, one of our crew members is just really obsessed with like theme park, tycoon games. Um, yeah, well, I mean, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm down to play armchair Imagineer here. You know, we should get a defunct land going on the matrix. Um, the matrix 1.0, what happened to it? Oh yeah. There's probably somebody, yeah, there's probably a machine in the machine city that just does that.
01:00:25
Speaker
uh yeah architect their person is michael wisener oh god hello neo i'm michael wisener um christ we tried to buy you you old white bastard
01:00:45
Speaker
But yeah, that's the battle of Zion. It looks cool. It doesn't progress the story. Because by this point, the sad truth is of the story. By this point, we know that Zion has been destroyed and rebuilt five times already. So the machines are literally just going through the motions. They know it's inevitable.
01:01:07
Speaker
that the humans will all it's not a it's just not a visually interesting battle other than like the machines themselves and and you know human and machine are cool but as far as the I guess lack of a better word choreography of the battle or yeah it's a lot of gray it's a lot of gray gray and orange explosions and
01:01:27
Speaker
If you were to think of it as like mapping out like a football game, it's just there's a big hole in the ceiling that they drilled. They're all coming through that one hole. We got a blast at that hole. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. It's now to be fair, like a little later on, there's a second hole.
01:01:45
Speaker
Huh? A second set? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So it feels kind of anticlimactic for what it is. And we finally get the big payoff on the big fucking doors. Oh, God. That was set up like crazy in the previous movie. Yeah, Neo, I believe. Oh, please don't. Oh, God. Why couldn't he have sacrificed himself?
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So hooray. It's the day is saved. Wait, the day isn't saved because the machines are just going to come back quick. Everybody retreat to the caves. Cranky, cranky, cranky. I believe in Neo and then we cut to. Neo and Trinity.
01:02:32
Speaker
Well, and Bane still. I mean, we haven't dispatched Bane yet because... I mean, but that's where we're rejoining Neo and Trinity. Because that's like the end of the battle for Zion. That's like, is there anything else to the rest of the movie besides like the denouement after the Neo-Trinity Smith storyline? I guess not, nope. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna go to bed early tonight.
01:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, visions of Smith dancing in my head. Yeah, exactly. So you might as well just pull up the PDF of the script that I emailed you and scroll all the way down. I'm thinking about being in relation to.
01:03:14
Speaker
the established and then often repeated disdain that Smith has for humanity. And it makes the fact that he is encased in Bane's flesh, this very interesting kind of irony that this is the point that he's at. He is so power hungry that he's stooping to levels that Smith of the first movie would never have even wanted to do. Oh, yeah. I mean, if Smith hated the smell of the Matrix. Yeah.
01:03:44
Speaker
God, this some great fucking dialogue now. And then you contrast the delivery of those lines with a lot of lines that Smith has later. It's Smith. We're going to have so many Smith episodes, but ultimately, we really are ultimately Bane seals Trinity away and a lower deck of the ship, which I always think that's kind of bullshit when you have a.
01:04:08
Speaker
girl character who is portrayed as this badass fighter and then oh well the main guy character has to do something cool so we have to dispatch her in some way you know yeah like he got the drop on her I guess it's a little silly but then Bane he electrocutes or burns Neo's eyes out
01:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, so they start fighting with one of those cool-ass lightning guns. And that cuts a bunch of wires open, so there's a live line. Was that the thing that killed Cypher in the first movie? The lightning guns, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a fucking Ghostbusters proton pack. It fucking rules. Yeah.
01:04:56
Speaker
It's like an EMP laser gun. It slaps. But there's a live wire next to them as they're fighting. Bane shoves it into Neo's face. And when we see Neo again, he's got his eyeballs burned away. It's kind of an interesting thematic parallel of Merovingian wanted the eyes of the Oracle.
01:05:15
Speaker
And Neo's eyes are growing. I don't know. It's that's something. There's something there. It's also another interesting nod to Norse mythology in that Odin gave up one of his eyes for greater wisdom. And now Neo, with his eyes burned away, can literally see what's going on around him, thanks to this training in the first movie. Or am I making that up?
01:05:39
Speaker
Um, you might be making that up. I don't remember him. You still feel the call because that's, he does like the come here thing that, that Morpheus did. Right. Uh, that gets reused at least once a movie. Yes. Um, and it rules.
01:05:56
Speaker
But you do, I feel like even though maybe it's not a direct callback, you feel the connection to those training scenes with Morpheus with this fight with Bane. You do! You really do, yeah. I got the action figure.
01:06:13
Speaker
Um, he, uh, I did buy the action figure of real world Neo, uh, from when this movie came out, uh, because you could pose it on your desk with like, they had that matching stand with the Sentinel figure. It was dope. Uh, but it came with three interchangeable heads, like regular Keanu Reeves burned away empty eye socket.
01:06:39
Speaker
Keanu Reeves and blindfolded Keanu Reeves. It's like why would you make the second head? It's an interesting callback I guess as well to why do my eyes hurt because you've never used them. Why do my eyes hurt because they've been burned out of your skull?
01:06:55
Speaker
And I absolutely love this because like I said, it's a, it's a call towards a Norse mythology. Um, but when we do see me, uh, uh, from Neo's point of view, from this point out in the movie, it's like all rendered in like brilliant golds and, uh, swirling and dragon spirals.
01:07:17
Speaker
This flaming smith, well, flaming smith, obviously he's flaming, but we see a smith made of fire and he's like he's seeing who Bane truly is inside. Yeah, he sees Smith wearing the sunglasses and everything. Yeah.
01:07:36
Speaker
I love that that's like whatever spirit he's seeing acknowledges that Smith's signature character. You know, you got to have the. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's like that that ties into the concept of residual self image. Yeah, that's true. So that's what that's what Smith identifies as this angry white man in a suit and sunglasses. He thinks the shades. Well, that too. The shades are cool. Yeah.
01:08:04
Speaker
Um, I personally read it as Neo being able to see life, like just like see the force as it were. Uh, but yeah, he's able to defeat Bane. He slaps him in the head with a fucking tire iron or whatever the fuck. Um, and you see it from Neo's POV. So you just see Smith's head get blown off his shoulders.
01:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, which I don't know if I couldn't quite catch it. I wasn't looking properly. But I don't think you can see if Bane's head has been decapitated from his body. But I like the idea that that is representational of Smith's life just going away and emptying out of his body. So it would like. Yeah, exactly. It would look like his head gets blown away from that. Right.
01:09:03
Speaker
And he has the nice little joke about, uh, uh, I'm okay Trinity, but I'm going to need you to drive. Yeah. And then it's like, you hear the laugh track from the studio audience. Oh, and one more note that I had about the battle of Zion. And I guess the ultimate outcome is that. Link survives.
01:09:26
Speaker
which is so weird. Link does your five. Reloaded has that whole scene of him and his pussy, I mean, his wife, where she gives him the necklace, right? And then he's like, I'm gonna be fine. I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna come back and I'm two days from retirement. And then it's like, oh, he lives. I could have sworn that was telegraphing him dying.
01:09:52
Speaker
OK, sure. Great. Yeah, I know it is cool. Link's really cool. Why not? I love him. I love his. Yeah, I mean, like he's the comedy character you kill. He's not even that he's comedy. It's that he there's genuine like potential relationship angst that you really think they're telegraphing and then they just don't do it, which which is cool. I like it. I'm happy for them. Not mad about it. Just surprised.
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah, I guess he, you know, where would he be without his pussy? God almighty. That fucking line. I'm never going to, I'm never going to understand it. We get, uh, you know, now that Bain's out of the way and Trinity's driving, we can, we can head to the machine city, right?
01:10:42
Speaker
Yep. So, uh, I'm scrolling through the script, uh, that I've downloaded a PDF of offline. I should make mention that is listed as golden rod revisions, June 27th, 2002. Um, and there's about several, after the battle of Zion is more or less over, you just see.
01:11:04
Speaker
These lines like omitted, omitted, omitted, omitted, omitted, omitted. And it's all like the battle sequences redacted. Uh, pretty much. It's like, okay, how are we going to put that into a script? You can't. And then we rejoin Neo and Trinity on page, uh, one Oh five. Oh yeah. You know, sorry. One 20 on the PDF. Yeah. The main characters of the movie. That's fine.
01:11:29
Speaker
You know, but they feel like I respect just the boldness of the choice. I don't know how effective it necessarily is, but I can respect it. And at least the battle looked cool. Yeah. Like I said in the last episode, I really respect the audacity of these movies. Yes, completely because they they truly go against what you'd expect from a just matrix sequel.
01:11:58
Speaker
Um, yeah, but it really sets the stage with what to expect for the rest of the Wachowskis careers. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, because at this point it's their fourth movie ever and three of their four movies have been matrix movies. True. True. Two of them have had jelly pants. Yeah. Kick ass.
01:12:23
Speaker
Maybe my second favorite scene in the whole movie is- Okay, do tell. Well, they're flying to the Machine City, and I think it's that they need to get past those sort of sentries that are kind of guarding the- Oh my God, yes.
01:12:39
Speaker
pull up and they pull all the way up and then they go through the permanent cloud cover. And for the first time, Trinity sees the sky like the real sky, the real world. Just color for the first time in these movies, we see color other than the color graded blues and greens. Yeah, it's just like natural sunlight shining through the bridge of the it's a gorgeous scene. It's gorgeous. It really is.
01:13:07
Speaker
Uh, and we, we get to see from the one side, the sun and from, uh, yeah, I mean, we'll get to that, but like they, they're using almost exclusively. Yeah. Yeah. They use exclusively like unnatural artificial lighting throughout these first three movies. And then they're filming like sunsets and shit in movie four, but this is the first like true natural sunlight we get in any of these movies.
01:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, and then after I mean, do you have any any notes on on the trip to the Machine City? Or the trip into rather the the flight to the Machine City. It looks dope as shit I mean, I love it as a ride again. Yeah, absolutely The the flight to to to zero one. Yeah the
01:14:04
Speaker
They, Neo and Trinity are following these giant power cables running from the human farms to the main core of the city. Which is what he saw in his vision, right? Right, exactly. So they're following those three lines and they come upon like almost like a fucking mountain range. And then that mountain range gets up essentially. And it turns out that there are these giant fucking gunships bordering the machine city and they look
01:14:33
Speaker
terrifying, and they launch hundreds of thousands of these little fucking sentient flying bombs at them. And it just looks so fucking cool. Holy shit. But we can't have nice things, can we? Because the ship crashes, right?
01:14:59
Speaker
Mm hmm. The ship, the ship flies all the way up, banking off of a wall of these sentinels that are coming at them up over the cloud line. Beautiful. We see the sun and the moon dope. We fall back down and then they can't get the ship started again because it's been hit by the giant fucking lightning cloud storm layer. They can't get the ship started again in time before the crash. It starts like.
01:15:27
Speaker
four seconds beforehand, it smashes into the wall. There's the briefest shot of Trinity actually getting impaled. Like it's very blink and you'll miss it. And it's you really you don't see it. And then when Neo goes over to her and he's like, all right, come on, come on, you're OK. We get up. And then she's like, nah, this is where this is where I stop. And then he's like, what are you talking about? And he feels down her torso and then the reveal
01:15:54
Speaker
of the fact that she got impaled multiple times. It's like you can you can like hear, even if you're just watching it alone, you can hear the audience just deflating. You're just going like, ah, that's. Yeah. To me, to me, this is not a good death scene. And it's not just because I love Trinity. It is not, unfortunately. It just feels cheap. I think she goes out like a punk.
01:16:18
Speaker
It's, yeah, she's a victim of the plot, unfortunately. Like, I mean, they make the joke in, not to credit blank check too often, but like David Sims, if you're listening, please come talk with us about machines. But they make the joke like, Neo's going off essentially to die. You can't have just Trinity waiting in the minivan. It's like, I'm waiting for soccer practice to end. Keep the car warm.
01:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like from a plot standpoint, I get why she has to die. And the dialogue is very emotionally honest. That is the one thing that I do love is that I, their love, I love their love. And I love where she's like, I love every moment I've gotten to spend with you. Like it's so real and genuine. Like it's enough to get me through it. The circumstances of it, like just that reveal is just like,
01:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that she can't move like they can't move around at all and they're just laying on the floor. And again, with the sunglasses thing, you can't see Keanu Reeves's eyes. So we can't tell how hard he's crying. He also makes the most unfortunately funny honking noises just after Trinity dies. It's it's like the opposite of a snort laugh. It's painful.
01:17:47
Speaker
I need to get up now. I don't remember it. Yeah, it's like I don't know. I've got like a growing collection of unfortunately funny sounds in terrible things in movies. There's a bit in Temple of Doom where Harrison Ford gets punched in the heart and he goes.
01:18:07
Speaker
This one's not a sound effect, but you did remind me of temple of doom his face acting he does when he puts his face against a little hole and he goes we are going to die and then he makes the Like he literally makes the face of that emoji with the big pleading eyes like
01:18:36
Speaker
We're in the last 15 minutes of this movie and we're less. We're like in less than an hour into our record. We're going to do fine. I need to find that. This is going to be our shortest episode ever. Need to find a honk sound. Where is it? I'm looking up on my phone right now. OK, OK, OK. I'm going to vamp while you're looking that up. But yeah, it's it's very emotionally
01:19:04
Speaker
It's very emotionally heartfelt dialogue. It sucks that Trinity can't move. It sucks that he's got the blindfold on. They kiss and you love them. And that's enough to get me emotionally through it. I understand. It's not. Wait, wait, wait. I'm not hearing anything on my end. Is it that? I did not hear a darn thing. Hold on.
01:19:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He sounds like a velociraptor. It's amazing. I got to make a note to lay in a velociraptor noise side by side. Yeah.
01:19:53
Speaker
Although one of these YouTube comments does point out from someone named JackHSU3458 says, she meant what she said when confronting the Merovingian that she will die for Neo. And I like it conceptually. I just think the execution is so sloppy that
01:20:11
Speaker
It's one of those things where I'm glad the fourth movie exists. We'll get into it. Yes, exactly. I'm really glad. The fourth movie did nothing but strengthen my love for these movies. We were talking last weekend.
01:20:29
Speaker
about I voiced my anxiety about rewatching this movie because it'll be the first time since watching it with you back in January, six or eight months ago. And I know it's the least liked and I'm like, I know you didn't really like it the first time around. I'm like, oh no, have I been wrong this whole time? I think that makes it an interesting podcast going into it, but I also think that
01:20:56
Speaker
Oh, exactly. I think the hate for it is overblown when you really, you know, sit down and give it and give it a shot. I think the hate for it is really, as you said, based on the the the oddball bullshit cliffhanger of the previous movie. Yeah. And the and the structure of this.
01:21:15
Speaker
Well, the structure. Yeah. Just like a whole episode of Parks and Rec. It's great. But Ron Swanson is very funny. Take the Neo Trinity stuff, take the Zion stuff and just interspersed. Just intercut it like a normal movie would with an A plot B plot back and forth. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Granted, I think it. Yeah. You're probably going to miss the Neo stuff when it's not on screen, but at least it's not going to be not on screen for long. Yeah.
01:21:42
Speaker
Um, I think you could make a pretty solid, like, God damn it. Um, well, yeah, I think it's time for dessert. Let me get the, Hey, you're right. Best goddamn part of the neo fucking walks up to interact with a giant fucking mechanical baby face.
01:22:12
Speaker
the time baby the time baby time baby a character literally named deus ex machina yep fuck off yeah
01:22:30
Speaker
um uh uh uh just come the fuck on um and and uh what's the what's this cat it's named uh deus uh
01:22:45
Speaker
who's credit kevin michael richardson voice actor extraordinaire uh does the voice of uh of the day of sex makana a giant fucking baby face i kevin michael richardson is incredible um oh yeah you don't know if you don't know who he is you should he's
01:23:07
Speaker
Let's see, I mean, where do you even start? He's on Gravity Falls, quite a few times, though actually not as Time Baby. He's Gan2 and Lilo and Stitch. He is...
01:23:20
Speaker
on Family Guy and all that stuff, Simpsons. What else did he do? He did a great Joker in The Batman. Oh, really? Yeah. He's a rare non-Mark Hamill animated Joker, who I think is quite good.
01:23:40
Speaker
I think the Alan Tudyk Joker on the Harley Quinn show is quite good, too, though. But God, it's I'm sad to say he has one of my favorite Joker lines ever of the Alan Tudyk Joker. It's like, where's my electric car, Bruce? Yes. Where's my damn electric car, Bruce?
01:23:58
Speaker
just absolutely wonderful. Um, but yeah, um, but, uh, deeply, deeply underrated voice actor in my, my opinion, uh, well, like all voice actors are underrated, but yes, Kevin Michael Richardson, holy shit. This is something that Charlie and I bring up on our gravity falls podcast that Kevin Michael Richardson, a lot of his, the voices that he has recruited for are this kind of.
01:24:19
Speaker
Silky deep voice which he can he certainly reaches but then he also voiced a Chemek a little wizard green guy in the in the Super Mario Brothers movie and that's a voice that sounds like this So he's got a huge range that he doesn't wow that is diversity. Yeah. Yeah So he's underrated in that respect I also really want to write a song about him because I realized that his the syllables of his name make it perfect to write Alexander Hamilton and
01:24:49
Speaker
Do it I always think of it When when I when I hear his name, but yeah, we get the deus ex machina and then we get neo's appeal to We have a common enemy, you know smith has gone rogue smith over everyone in the matrix There's gonna be nobody left in the matrix. He's gonna take it over. He's gonna destroy you and I
01:25:11
Speaker
He makes a good point, but I always... That's some of the other things that rubbed me in a weird way when I watched this movie the first time, and I still sometimes think about it, but... In a post-Matrix-Resurrections world, I think they kind of rectify it in that one for reasons we'll explain later, but... It always felt strange that... Because it's essentially you've got three factions, right? You've got Neo and the humans. You've got Smith working in Smith's own interest, and then you've got the machines. Theoretically...
01:25:41
Speaker
He could appeal to Smith and say, let's take the machines down together. I mean, yeah, at this point is our direct oppressors in this, in this scenario. I think it's very, oh yeah. It's a weird decision to say, well, surely this will solve, solve all the problems, but then the fourth movie happens and it all makes more sense with the fourth movie.
01:26:08
Speaker
Um, at this point in terms of like, are so thematically connected that it, I, maybe it's just my love for Smith. Wanting wanted him to join up with Neo, but.
01:26:22
Speaker
I mean, I completely understand where you're coming from. And as you say, it's, it's basically addressed and resolved in the resurrections. And at this point in the series, like Smith is like just an unchecked computer virus, literally taking over everything. He's desperate for purpose and his purpose is to take over everything, much like capitalism. Yeah.
01:26:47
Speaker
Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, but that of course leads to Neo saying, uh, all he wants is peace. Uh, and then the deus ex machina plugs him in. And it's kind of the first time we hear talking from one of the machines, right? Not a program, but one of the machines themselves, it says like an actual physical real world machine. Yes. Yeah.
01:27:16
Speaker
which is a call forward actually to the way vacation Morpheus is able to access the real world in resurrections. Look at that. Hey, same basic technology, but like brought down in scale. I definitely picked up on that. Okay, cool. I didn't until just now.
01:27:38
Speaker
Oh, no. I mean, now that you're saying it is okay. Okay. Good. We're on the same page at least.
Neo's Full Connection and Machine City Sequence
01:27:43
Speaker
That's nice. Um, but now the, the crap, what were we just saying? Um, uh, Nio's jacked into the matrix by getting fully plugged in. Like every single one of his ports is plugged into again. Right. Which makes sense since they're using the stuff that they use on all the humans rather than the stuff that the rebels used. Which is just the neck ports. Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:09
Speaker
Since they don't want to do that to their people, but the machines are like, doesn't matter. He were plugged in like this before you could take it. Which means he does get this interesting shot of him like reclining onto this bed of cables. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's so cool. And you were right about. And then we get the greatest fucking sequence in the movie. Because when he looks at the machine city, he sees it all lit up, right? Like.
01:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. He's seeing specifically points of light, like he's not seeing clouds in the sky or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah, we get he gets plugged in and it's the best scene, best fucking scene. It's pouring rain in the Matrix City and all the Smiths are just a line line double on the street. And like, what is it? Like half of them are like dummies, right? And half of them are doubles or they're all. OK, so. I love masks and half of them are dummies, right?
01:29:08
Speaker
It's a one to three ratio. So they hired every single six foot two actor with a similar build and proportion to Hugo weaving in Australia, put them in Hugo weaving masks that had different expressions on them.
Creation of the Smith Army and Epic Soundtrack
01:29:27
Speaker
Happy, angry, neutral.
01:29:32
Speaker
stuck them all out in the rain and had them stand behind rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of more Smith dummies that they could then operate a small lever in the back to get the heads to turn all in sync together. So you get that sense that it's a live group.
01:29:56
Speaker
It's so fucking cool how they did it. Like obviously for the closeups, they're using like CGI and like compositing to just put in a bunch of Hugo Weavings. But for those big wide shots, that's just shitloads of people and dummies. Ah, it's the best. And it's like, you can, you can basically hear like the Western confrontation to showdown music.
01:30:21
Speaker
and we're just walking down the street facing the main smith. Yes, one smith that looks exactly like all of the other smiths walks out of the crowd. Well, but we get clued in as to which smith this is when Nia says, this ends here, and the smith says, I know it does, I've seen it. So we know that this is the smith that used to be the oracle. Yes, exactly.
01:30:50
Speaker
Um, and then he says, that's why the rest of me is just going to watch the show and it's just going to be a one-on-one fight, which I think is a very smart decision. Cause as fun as the Burley brawl was, it's a lot more raw to have it just be this one-on-one very dragon ball esque fight, I believe. Everything about this fucking fight rules. It kicks off as part of the movie. Oh, easily, easily. It helps that it's at the very tail end of the movie. So you like you leave it on the high note. Um.
01:31:20
Speaker
But Jesus Christ, this this fucking fight sequence slaps. So it starts off with a fucking soundtrack, which I'm just going to read a little of here. But they're using a scripture from the Upanishads. If I'm saying that correctly, I hope I am. I unfortunately do not know. But the lyrics are all in. Yeah, the lyrics are all in Sanskrit.
01:31:52
Speaker
Let me pull up the translation just to get it.
01:31:59
Speaker
read correctly, but the lyrics are, you know, the Asato Masada Gomaya stuff that is from the unreal, lead me to the real, from the darkness, lead me to the light, from death, lead me to immortality. And it goes on and on with these like badass scripture verses about like the one and cycles and peace and power and
01:32:27
Speaker
We're going to do like, I'm going to read out all the lyrics on a later episode, but like the soundtrack is going fucking bug nuts. The rain is coming down so fucking hard to the point where the actors aren't even, that's not their hair. That's not even wigs. That is rock solid hair pieces that they had to fabricate so that it wouldn't get messed up by the heavy raindrops. And isn't it some shots of the rain are the digital rain or some, some segments of rain?
01:32:55
Speaker
I was paying really close attention to it this time around. There all are certain wide shots in the slow-mo where the rain like has been interrupted in its fall and it like resumes falling after that like big air bubble burst. So I guess I imagine that in 4K you can see it pretty clearly.
01:33:14
Speaker
Yes, I did snag a few pictures of it off of my big 4K screen, but it's very challenging to photograph. So, but yeah, you can actually see matrix code in the rain because the matrix is literally falling apart because Smith controlling everybody is unsustainable. Yeah.
Intense Neo vs. Smith Fight and Visual Effects
01:33:37
Speaker
And they just punch each other at crazy high speeds. Smith can fly now.
01:33:42
Speaker
We're very, they fly now? They fly now? God damn it. They fly now. Yeah, because I guess that was the one thing that got Neo the victory in the Burley Brawl was that he was able to fly a blast. Yeah, he could get away. Right, exactly.
01:33:56
Speaker
Um, but yeah, like what I said about there being less rubbery CG this time is true, except for like, when it's used for that really fucking cool slow motion punch really effectively, I think. Cause then you see like all the, the way that Smith's face like folds when it ripples, when Neo punches it, you see the impact.
01:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, like after like when they're in the crater after the main fight. Like I know I said that the Battle of Zion is cool, but that was that was me just trying to find something nice to say about it or not say anything at all. But this is fucking cool.
01:34:38
Speaker
You get all sorts of different types of fights within the fight sequence, too. Yeah. They're thrown around each other in the air. Smith throws Neo into a building. Yeah. Where they slam into one another. We get some of the coolest dialogue in the movie, which it's.
01:34:58
Speaker
God, where is it? I was repeating it to myself all day at work today. Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson? Closing in on you? Oh, I can. Because as the oracle, he has had a vision of this moment, and now he's just following the script, essentially, which is ironic, because Smith's whole thing was he freed himself from the programming, and now here he is following Destiny's programming in a way. Yeah, exactly.
01:35:29
Speaker
Um, he does not yet understand that for the Smith episodes, all he wants to do is destroy Neo, but he does not yet understand that to destroy Neo is to destroy himself. So, um, you can't have a zero without, you can't have a one without a zero. You can't have a zero without a one. Um, okay.
01:35:54
Speaker
We haven't gotten to two yet. Yeah, don't worry. The matrix itself is still in its binary phase. Yeah. Unfortunately, as far as social justice war rearing goes. Yeah, though, even more than the fucking rules, my favorite favorite favorite scene in this movie is the culmination of the fight when they're in that like pit that they form under the street.
01:36:23
Speaker
And it's, Smith's undoing is such a good contrast to the Smith that we knew from the first movie. It was developed through the second. Oh my God, yes. Smith's whole thing in the first is his whole speech, even when he's talking about how much he hates humanity and the Matrix is so eerily calm and collected that when he's here, and again, without the shades, notably, we see his eyeballs that
01:36:52
Speaker
Or at least I think so, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The the glasses were knocked off during the the indoor part of the fight sequence.
01:37:01
Speaker
And that, yeah, so that he's, Hugo Weaving is giving it his all to portray a version of Smith that is just at his wits and not understanding, like he says, is why do you continue to fight? Why do you get back up? He does not understand Mr. Anderson. Yeah, it's what do you fight for? And the way he just, the way he delivers lines like, do you, like, can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Like the rage in it,
01:37:27
Speaker
And it still feels like Smith, it doesn't feel like a different character, but the way he says, like, it's all as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love, like, the way he's just spitting on everything that Neo is standing for.
01:37:44
Speaker
and he's so certain that he's about to win, but he still can't get over the eologic of why Neo is continuing to fight. He is literally standing on the precipice of victory and he's still getting pissed off that he just doesn't get it. He's absorbed more humanity than any program ever has or ever will and he still doesn't understand and that's driving him insane.
01:38:09
Speaker
God, it fucking, Smith fucking rules. I'm so excited to just dedicate whole episodes to that fucker. Yeah, man. God. The best, the best. I mean, did you have anything else to say about those moments or? I mean, I feel like I could do an entire episode just into Neo Dameron, this fight sequence itself. Neo Dameron?
01:38:39
Speaker
Uh, so I, I should mention, I call it Neo Damerung because that's the name, the main part of the fight sequence, the big action, Asato, Masada, Gomaya, all of that. It's called Neo Damerung on the soundtrack, which is a reference to Gotter Damerung, Twilight of the Gods, uh, which is part of a, uh, operatic, uh, the, the ring cycle. Um. Oh, okay.
01:39:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So it's Neo Dameron, God or Dameron, Twilight of the Gods, Twilight of the Neo. Which makes sense. And the main musical themes are repeated for Navras, which is the end closing credits musical sequence. But yeah, just Smith and his breakdown, his complete breakdown of his character here,
01:39:33
Speaker
really ending with Neo fights back a little more and then allows Smith to smithify him.
01:39:43
Speaker
Yep, and I love that nod, or just like, is it over? And the other Smith just nods, it's like, yeah. And then, but is it before that or after that? That he, I guess it is after that, that he's saying like, wait, I know this part, because it was in his vision as the oracle with the oracle powers. Yes. There's something like, it's the same- It's before he Smithifies Neo, yeah. You were laying right there, just like that.
01:40:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's the same thing that grabs me about, Ian, this may be a reach, but like in Infinity War, the idea that when everyone gets snapped away by Thanos, no one sees it coming except Spider-Man, his spider sense is like going nuts, which is why he says I don't feel so good. And it's like, when you know that something is about to happen, and it's like, you can't stop it, and you just feel it, and then it happens, and you don't necessarily know the outcome.
01:40:40
Speaker
And it's the same thing with Smith where he says, like, yes, you're you stand there and I stand here right here and I'm supposed to say something. And it's that line that that the Oracle said that you were talking about, the tagline of the movie.
01:40:56
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo. Um, which is interesting because in the Smith, he calls him Neo. Fucking amazing. I should mention in the script that I'm looking at here, he goes on to say, don't be afraid, Neo. And that's when he calls him Neo. So I'm wondering why they cut that line out, but in the movie itself, everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo. I think it's, it's more effective as just one sentence, I guess.
01:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of like that. Don't be afraid, though. That's just it. But yes, it fucking slaps. No, and then he uses his real fucking allies. He doesn't even realize what he said either. What did I just say?
01:41:39
Speaker
Like, it's so good. And then you see the fear for the first time. Agent Smith is afraid. Because now he doesn't know what's happening. He has no roadmap. Yeah, he's convinced it's a trick. And same reason that I love, like, like characters like Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls, where, like, he has this nigh omnipotence or like ability to see everything, but not quite. So there's elements that.
01:42:05
Speaker
He thinks he knows everything because he is so overconfident, but he really only sees part of the story. Right.
01:42:13
Speaker
And it's so good. And then he smithifies Neo, right? And then he smiths Neo. Yep. He gets smith. He gets smith. He asks the new smith if it's over. The new smith smiles and then explodes. Much like how Neo went inside and blew up Smith in the first movie, right?
01:42:40
Speaker
Um, yeah, more or less. I think the idea is that, uh, I've been thinking about this a lot lately and there's several different reads you could take to it. Um, you could read it as the balancing of the equation. Um, Smith was trying to solve for X, but instead he realized that zero equals zero and you can't, there's nothing can be gained from that.
01:43:04
Speaker
Um, there's no more balancing of the scales. It's all just Smith now can't sustain itself. Uh, or you can also see it as Neo having absorbed Smith's code. Now the main computer access has access to Smith's code and can destroy him from the inside out. You can also see it as because Neo entering Smith was what gave him this freedom.
01:43:32
Speaker
him entering Neo undoes whatever happened. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's like a reversal of fates almost. Or even like when you have, you know, two magnets and you try to push two of the same ends together. Oh, okay. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. He fucking explodes. And then Neo out in the real world, you see him kind of explode with light, which is- Well, then he becomes a giant crucifix.
01:44:01
Speaker
Like you see the light emanate from him. I pointed this out when we watched it in 4K together.
Neo's Sacrifice and Matrix Reset
01:44:07
Speaker
You can clearly see it in 4K because you see it basically from Neo Vision. You see the fractals exploding out from that one center point of light. But in yeah, in yeah, in everything else, except for the highest definition, it just looks like a straight up crucifix, which is a little on the nose. Yeah. Not too on the nose for the Wachowskis.
01:44:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, that is fair. I know directors that dabble in subtlety and they're cowards. Yes. But yeah, shit. Everything fucking explodes. All the Smith explode with light. And now there's just the Oracle's body lying in the crater where Smith was. Yep.
01:44:55
Speaker
Um, just the idea that she was like possessed and, and laying low under Smith, but she was still there kind of pulling the strings the whole time. Yeah. You can't completely erase that programming really, I guess.
01:45:12
Speaker
Well, she's too central to the Matrix. That's why when they caught her aiding rebels, they they didn't destroy her because they probably couldn't. Yeah, that makes sense. That's fair. Yeah, so then the machines fuck off the sentinels fuck off from Zion.
01:45:30
Speaker
how slowly paced the actual battle in most of this movie is, it's very merciful to the viewer after this climax. The Denouement is like nothing, like it's so fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very like, okay, the Death Star is gone, get your medals, get out the door. We get a brief scene with the humans accepting peace, and we have to endure a little more kid, and then we see Morpheus being like, thank you, Neo.
01:46:00
Speaker
And does he and I like do they make? Yep, I guess they hook back up because she sinks into his arms. He didn't really show her a breakup with with lock, though, did they? Yeah, that's going to be fun later on for him. Lock, right? There's so many. It was lock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's. And then Morpheus gets one of his only moments in the film, which is just celebrating with everybody and not even celebrating, just looking up.
01:46:31
Speaker
We see the the machines all kind of lift Nioh's corpse because this to just kill them. Yep. To go in there and they put them on to the back of a flatbed triceratops machine, which looks cool as hell. They smack the back of a truck twice like, all right, get them out of here. Yep, yep, yep. Load it up. Let's go. Let's see Trinity again at all. We don't see her body.
01:46:57
Speaker
Nope. Nope. And then we cut to inside of the matrix one final time where the green filter has been lifted. Now we get much more natural sunlight. We see the Oracle very forest gump-esque park bench. Sitting on a park bench.
01:47:21
Speaker
You know, approached by the architect. Yeah. They have. God almighty, it really is kind of rough to escape the Colonel Sanders of it all, isn't it? But yeah, they have a brief exchange. The humans who want to be freed will be freed. How long can this truce last as long as it can?
01:47:47
Speaker
And then Sati architect fucks off. Sati shows up. Yeah. She does or we see the sky up here and then says the Oracle said, did you make that? Like, yeah, I mean, it's a sunrise. Yes. Yeah. It's it's I believe the first time we see the sun in the matrix as well. Yeah.
01:48:13
Speaker
So it's just her and Serif and Sati, right? Yep. And the cat, we see the cat. We do see the cat. We get the call back to the matrix resetting via deja vu. Yeah. Which I really liked. That was a nice quiet moment. And it's a nice, it is a nice quiet moment of just those three characters kind of.
01:48:38
Speaker
And Sati apparently made the suns. It's very telling that this movie ends on a shot of none of the main characters.
01:48:55
Speaker
because they're all either dead or useless. Yeah, that's unfortunate for storytelling overall. Yeah, but it ends with, will we ever see Neo again? I don't know, but I believe. Sunrise credits, Asato Masan Gomaya. I think the fact that we let this movie end with the main characters dead, and we didn't let Little Shop of Horrors end with the main characters dead is an act of cowardice on it.
01:49:26
Speaker
That's an excellent point. Um, but yeah. And, uh, with the exception of all of the other peripheral media, that's the last we solve the matrix for 18 years. Yep. Yeah. Other than in film, right? Well, in on the big screen. Yes. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. But, uh,
01:49:53
Speaker
it's it's um yeah it's a shorter episode this time around sorry what are we going to title this one uh now is i was going to ask you it's like i mean uh the matrix reloaded is a very horny movie i had the matrix revolutions is the third movie yes is a very the third movie is a very third movie
01:50:18
Speaker
Yes. No, I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that encapsulates everything that it just feels like one giant third act.
01:50:27
Speaker
Hey, you're not wrong. Perfect. Let me write all of the upsides and downsides of that because third acts, you know, they can be exciting and pulse pounding and emotional and heavy, but they can also, you know, they can be these long drawn out battles and you kind of just want to try and check in your watch at that point. So it emphasizes the good and the bad of the third act as a concept, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
01:50:54
Speaker
It's still my favorite though of the three and I respect and now I do I think if you had told me that the first time I watched this movie I wouldn't have understood at all and now I get it, you know, I might not agree but I get it
01:51:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it like you said, it cannot exist on its own merits, but my God, I love it anyway. But the merits that it has are still really interesting. Like the stuff with Sati is really interesting. I mean, if a Smith is really interesting and Neo, it's just that it just feels like so little of it. And then it really does, unfortunately. I'm such a slut for the AI implications of it all and the science fiction horse shit. Yeah.
01:51:35
Speaker
But do we have anything else that we wanted to add before we get back to my to my shift as a power plant operations manager for recycling operations? But I have to I have to keep welding together these seams on the murder hut. Later renamed the mystery check. Yes. But what do we cover next time?
01:52:03
Speaker
That's actually a great question. I'm not sure we'll be one to cover next time. The format so far has been the three movies and we're at the end of the three movies. I think we talked briefly about covering next to the animatrix. True. In my list, my list has Smith as the next episode, which might make sense just because we're so damn excited about Smith, unless you wanted to save that for after resurrections. Hmm.
01:52:33
Speaker
because there is obviously more. I feel like because we're going to do multiple episodes on Smith, we could do a pre and post. We're not going to do. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to do resurrections just yet because as far as the Wachowskis go. Yeah. Yeah. They made these four movies, the three movies back to back and then they had a whole other career and then they broke up essentially and then resurrections happened.
01:52:59
Speaker
Um, so I really like dealing with these movies on their own terms. When I have listed after these in this, in the order that I have them, we have Smith, we have an episode about Asimov and AI and robot uprisings in general. And then we have, uh, animatrix recap. Then we have the commentaries.
01:53:18
Speaker
Uh, and then we could also at some point in there throw in the matrix revisited documentary. That's not a bad idea. Absolutely. I think that would make sense to shed light on the Wachowskis career ahead of resurrections. Absolutely. Down the line, I would like to, maybe not as their individual episodes, but I would like to delve into the rest of their filmography a little bit more. Yeah. I mean, definitely. I know we have planned Jupiter ascending with Charlie. Oh, definitely.
01:53:46
Speaker
And maybe speed racer. Oh, oh, have you seen speed racer? I get that. Okay. That movie fucking rules. Uh, so yes, absolutely. We're doing a speed racer. Um, uh, we could throw V for vendetta in there for funsies if you like. Uh, but, uh, yeah, we got a lot to cover. Um,
01:54:11
Speaker
You know what? Let's decide later what we want to talk about. I'm kind of game to talk Smith. I'm game to talk animatrix. Let's, let's make it a surprise purpose that drives us. And our purpose is talking about the matrix. So episode has been fulfilled.
01:54:44
Speaker
I say you can find me at drawnwithoutref on Instagram and whatever Twitter is now and elochesory.weebly.com. You can check out my other podcast, The Completed Mystery Shack. Look back in the hopefully soon to be completed Garden Wall Recall miniseries about Gravity Falls and over the Garden Wall respectively.
01:54:52
Speaker
that it has been
01:55:05
Speaker
Well, if you're in the Philadelphia area, I'm going to be in a musical soon, so check my page for info about that. Gosh, what else? I mean, what about you, Hope? I don't know why I had all that in my
01:55:21
Speaker
oracle vision, but that's what it was. Well, I don't have the gift of prescience, unfortunately, but I can tell you that you can usually find me at Hope Lichtner on most forms of social media, whatever they are anymore. Find me, I guess. And I also do another show called Duck Takes, high on cartoons.
01:55:47
Speaker
with my partner and good, good friend, Bex. We talk about the 2017 DuckTales. We actually, this episode is coming out like this week, but we actually just had a very special guest on who will not appear on that show for like a month and a half. Just give it a- Ooh, I wonder who it could be. Ooh, mystery indeed. But yeah, you can find me there. And otherwise I think that's about everything.
01:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, and you can find this podcast on Zencaster or wherever you get your fine podcasts. The Matrix Reclamations, a queer fan cast. And yeah, I guess that's about it. And shall we do our sign off? You do it and then I'll do the punchline. Oh no, there's a punchline. All right, so I guess love is the genesis of everything.
01:56:41
Speaker
Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. Oh god, we just talked about it, and I complete the son of a bitch. Perfect. Goodbye.