hey I'm an excited camper Adam Savage here in my cave for tested with a
show-and-tell that is pretty amazing so I got contacted by a fan and a fellow
special-effects artisan named Erik Ingerson who reached out to me and said
that he had picked up a matrix prop through a friend of a friend that had
been found in a dustbin behind the special effects company that made the
matrix on Alameda I believe look it's TLDR he found a matrix prop and he had
been holding on to it for years realizing that it probably should go to
a good home and he reached out to me as the potential future home of this matrix
prop now I'll tell you prop collecting in general is a lesson in disappointment
someone you buy something from it comes it's not as good as you think it is it's
always just never everything's never quite what you expect when he said he
had one of the guns from the matrix specifically the Lightning gun I must
say something like that's been kicking around for the intervening 18 years or
however long it's been since a matrix how long since the matrix came out
twenty freaking years no yes twenty years oh my god okay something that's
been kicking around that long is not gonna be in great shape
that's just what you got to expect it's gotta have been beaten by children and
no one's been paying attention and parts have fallen off no he brought it over
this afternoon and I'm here to tell you that this is a freaking masterpiece this
this is the lighting gun from The Matrix this is what tank takes care of cypher
wins believe it or not you're still gonna burn you piece of shit this is the
gun and it's in perfect condition honestly there's not a tube out of place
I have no idea of what what gods were smiling upon this prop when it entered
Eric's a sphere of influence lo those many years ago but he's taken excellent
care of it he said he's actually used it as a kind
of a because he's done a lot of video games where people carry machine guns
that are sort of in this format so he's use this to kind of get to know the
weight besides that it doesn't look like it's received very much abuse
at all the best part is it's got a plug here I think we should see if we can
power it out what do you think all right here we go okay so let's see I'm going
to cite a study couple of things in here so I could get some purchase on it I see
a white line on the wiring here so I'm just going to assume that that is
positive all right let's see we're going to turn it on low two bolts and we're
gonna turn it up hopefully nothing goes boot I'm assuming 12 volts almost all
films run on 12 volts all film props so much of everything that I did was 12
volts so I'm just gonna slowly turn it oh oh okay first up and foremost I'm
getting some action from the screen here this 20 year old LCD screen I mean it
looked like it actually ooh whoa okay here's a switch right so that's that's
clearly a trigger switch there's a second switch here it's a push push on
pull off so when I what
hahaha 20 years old still functioning there's
like a super-bright halogen but okay I'm smelling something burning which means
that bulb is probably coated in dust that I've just fried
holy hell I cannot believe that like oh and as I pull the trigger on it look at
this the the screen kind of fuzzes I don't know what it was supposed to do I
mean it probably had some imagery on it we can certainly add some dude dude this
I am speechless Eric thank you oh my god the other thing that you don't know is
that in the Matrix films there are a lot of really cool things there's like the
sighting device that that they used to find the bug inside neo there's the
chairs I mean all of the beautiful Hardware and with the aesthetic of
amazing artisan illustrator Geof Darrow who did so much of the of the key
particulate production design of the matrix and this fits right within that
aesthetic what Eric did not know and what I have never told people is that
seriously this is my favorite thing from the Matrix movies like if you would ask
me Adam if you met a genie and the genie said you can have one wish of a thing
for the Matrix films I would say bring me the Lightning gun this I I'm just I'm
beyond ecstatic about being the new caretaker of this beautiful beautiful
thing I'm gonna put it on the bench and let Gunther take some beautiful close-up
shots of it so you can glory just as I am and how gorgeous it is thank you
that is my show-and-tell I almost forgot there's one more story with this which
is I've held this gun before mm-hmm I worked on the matrix equals matrix two
and three out at building 11 on Alameda for ESC the the company that made the
Matrix films and I worked inside an office with Owen Paterson the production
designer of the matrix one of my all-time production design heroes
his first film is actually a great film called bliss an Australian film Owen is
amazing and was a fabulous boss a fabulous supervisor and I got a lot
stuff done with him and at one point I guess we've been working in the same
office for about six months I revealed that the matrix was truly one of my
all-time favorite films and he was like really yeah he said what do you know
about the gun room here and I'm like what and he took me to the back of
building 11 and there was like I can't remember five or six of these up on a
rack I spent the afternoon like holding everything that I could hold in that
room so I believe that this is the second time we've met thanks for
watching a hundred percent of whatever you just watched that's awesome we get
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