When Morpheus first spoke these iconic words in 1999, no-one could have predicted how influential
they would become.
"You've been living in a dream world, Neo."
Like the public's awakening from the prison of cruddy late '90s sci-fi blockbusters, Neo's
awakening from the Matrix is recognized as one of the defining moments in modern cinema.
But what if everything you thought you knew about your favorite philosophical action film
was wrong?
"No.
I don't believe it.
It's not possible."
Time to take the red pill and find out the truth about the most common misconceptions
of The Matrix.
The robots are bad
It's easy to think of the robots as the bad guys.
They enslaved humanity, turned them into batteries, and trapped them in a miserable cyberpunk
dystopia.
But The Animatrix, a collection of Wachowski-produced animated shorts that flesh out the world of
The Matrix, tells a different story.
A two-part short called The Second Renaissance shows humanity's creation and enslavement
of sentient artificial intelligence.
When the robots demanded equal rights, humans tried to wipe them out... so the robots fought
back.
In The Matrix Reloaded, the Architect even explains how the Matrix would have been a
utopia, if not for humanity's pessimism.
"The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime.
A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure."
What kind of bad guys try to create a paradise for their victims?
Misunderstood ones, that's who.
Everyone loved it
Today, it's an inarguable fact that The Matrix amazed audiences and revolutionized the concept
of the action movie.
But back in 1999, audiences and critics' reactions to the film were surprisingly mixed.
Time Out called it "another slice of overlong, high concept hokum."
Roger Ebert said it was "fun, but it could have been more" and unfavorably compared it
to 1998's Dark City.
Released in March, The Matrix was meant to be just a warm up for the summer's main event:
the first Star Wars film in 16 years.
A few months later, when The Phantom Menace failed to deliver, The Matrix probably began
to look a whole lot better.
And then came the sequels.
"Disappointed!"
The Matrix Reloaded was, to say the least, disappointing.
But from Salon to New York Magazine, these disappointing sequels were praised, with many
critics liking Reloaded even more than the original!
Roger Ebert gave it it 3.5 stars out of 4, while only giving the original film 3 stars.
But again, compared to those Star Wars prequels, almost anything would look good.
It's just about religion
It's clear that The Matrix incorporates allegorical aspects from multiple religions.
But did you know that it was also a transgender coming-out story?
Since the release of the Matrix trilogy, both Lana and Lily Wachowski have come out as transgender.
Looking back, The Matrix actually left you with plenty of clues.
"Thomas Anderson?"
"Yeah, that's me."
Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson, a man trapped in a soul-crushing job.
In the digital world, he's a hacker known as Neo.
After Neo wakes up from the Matrix and has left his old self behind, the film's big bad,
Agent Smith, continues to call him:
"Mr. Anderson."
This is a form of abuse that the trans community refers to as deadnaming.
But it gets even more personal than that.
As a teenager, Lana Wachowski tried to lose her life by jumping under a subway train.
"After school I go to the nearby Burger King and write a note.
I try not to think of anything but jumping as the train comes."
Knowing this, it's hard to ignore the connection to Neo's death-defying leap from the subway
tracks.
"Goodbye, Mr. Anderson."
"My name, is Neo!"
One last hint was the character Switch.
In the original script, Switch was meant to appear female inside the Matrix, but was physically
male in the real world - hence the name Switch.
This might have been a little too confusing for the audience, so idea was scrapped.
A brand new effect
When Trinity leapt into the air and froze as the camera swung around, moviegoers were
witnessing history.
This technique is called called bullet time, and was invented by The Matrix's VFX supervisor
John Gaeta.
"Bullet time is a stylistic way of showing that you're in a constructed reality."
But the technique didn't come entirely out of nowhere.
Gaeta credits directors Otomo Katsuhiro and Michel Gondry for inspiring him, though most
of the credit should go to Gondry.
Back in 1996, three years before The Matrix came out, Gondry directed a Smirnoff commercial
that had some pretty familiar looking effects.
Perhaps the imaginative director should add PSYCHIC to his resume.
"Whoa."
It had just one inspiration
If you thought The Matrix was the first onscreen depiction of a virtual world powered by human
batteries where digital death meant physical death as well, you'd be wrong.
The concept first appeared onscreen in a 1976 episode of Doctor Who.
In the third episode of a story arc called The Deadly Assassin, The Doctor encounters
a virtual world called the Matrix, which is built upon similar rules as the Wachowskis'
Matrix.
"I deny this reality, the reality is a computation matrix."
The Wachowskis were also inspired by the 1995 film Ghost in the Shell.
"The Wachowski Brothers showed me Ghost in the Shell.
And they showed me what they wanted to do with that type of action."
This fact was so well-documented that when asked about the connection in 2009, Ghost's
director Mamoru Oshii told The Guardian:
"I've been asked this question hundreds of times.
Frankly, it gets a bit annoying.
I'm sure the [Wachowskis] feel the same."
On the other hand, graphic novelist Grant Morrison's influence isn't talked about at
all.
Though his influence has never been publicly acknowledged by the Wachowskis, his comic
series The Invisibles has an uncanny resemblance to the films.
Published by DC from 1994 to 2000, The Invisibles follows group of rebels who discover that
reality is an illusion and humanity has been enslaved by aliens.
Also, their leader, King Mob, looks a bit familiar.
In an interview with SuisideGirls, Morrison said:
"Design staff on The Matrix were given Invisibles collections and told to make the movie look
like my books.
This is a reported fact.
The Wachowskis are comic book creators and fans and were fans of my work, so it's hardly
surprising."
It's the Wachowskis' directorial debut
When the Wachowskis first shopped around their idea for the Matrix, they were met with resistance.
Warner Brothers was interested in the script, but had another director in mind.
"It was already going down the pike with Warner Bros.
And Donner was directing it, we weren't sure about that."
"We felt like we wanted to try and direct something."
In order to prove that they could, in fact, direct a successful movie, the Wachowskis
had made Bound.
"Curious, maybe."
"That's funny, I'm feeling a little bit curious myself."
While the lesbian crime thriller failed to recoup its $6 million budget, it made waves
with audiences and critics alike, picked up a slew of indie awards and appeared on plenty
of "best of 1996" lists.
With that kind of proof of their directorial skills, the Wachowskis were allowed to direct
The Matrix.
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