TRANSCRIPT
Office Ladies | Episode 267 – Office Ladies Do The Matrix
Matrix Angela [00:00:20] Hello, I'm inside. Anything to report?
Matrix Jenna [00:00:23] Let's see, the two hosts left home at 9 a.m. One forgot a jacket, the other forgot lunch.
Matrix Angela [00:00:30] You're relieved.
Matrix Jenna [00:00:31] Just between you and me. You don't believe it, do you? You don't believe that these two are the ones?
Matrix Angela [00:00:34] I'm full of coffee. They are.
Matrix Jenna [00:00:39] I know but what about you?
Matrix Angela [00:00:41] Did you hear that?
Matrix Jenna [00:00:43] Your wife.
Matrix Angela [00:00:44] Are you sure this line is clear?
Matrix Jenna [00:00:46] Of course I'm sure it is.
Matrix Angela [00:00:47] If you say so.
Matrix Jenna [00:00:47] Yeah, right.
audio cue [00:00:48] [music from The Matrix swells and transitions into the Office Ladies theme]
Jenna [00:00:05] I'm Jenna Fischer,
Angela [00:00:05] and I'm Angela Kinsey.
Jenna [00:00:07] We were on The Office together,
Angela [00:00:08] and we're best friends.
Jenna [00:00:10] And now we're doing the ultimate Office lover's podcast, just for you.
Angela [00:00:14] Each week we will dive deeper into the world of The Office; with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details and lots of BFF stories.
Jenna [00:00:22] We're the Office Ladies 6.0.
audio cue [00:01:21] [musical sting]
Jenna [00:01:25] Hello. Welcome to Office Ladies 6.0. Angela, you are very excited about today because we re-watched one of your very most favorite movies.
Angela [00:01:36] We did. If I owned a pair of black leather pants, I'd be wearing them.
Jenna [00:01:39] Well, I've got an interesting tidbit for you.
Angela [00:01:42] Okay good.
Jenna [00:01:43] I'll save it.
Angela [00:01:44] Well you guys today we are discussing "The Matrix," the first one in the series. The opening to this movie is so cool. I mean, it is just amazing. Remember? It's a screen full of green numbers and they're scrolling and they're beginning to form a pattern and then we hear a conversation between two people. This movie had me from the get-go.
Jenna [00:02:04] Lady, do you know what I wrote down? As this movie came up on my screen, I wrote, "I'm already excited just when I see the Green Warner Brothers logo!"
Angela [00:02:14] Yes!
Jenna [00:02:14] And the Village Roadshow logo, cause they're all green and glitchy.
Angela [00:02:18] Yes, that was a big deal. I saw this in the theaters. I'll get to that story. But the minute that green WB logo came up, we're like, "What, w-what?"
Jenna [00:02:26] It was already fun. I'm in.
Angela [00:02:27] I'm In.
Angela [00:02:29] Well, Angela, let's jump in. I'm gonna tell you some stuff about this movie. The Matrix was released in 1999. It won four Academy Awards. It is on all of the lists for greatest science fiction films of all time. In 2012, The Matrix was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry Archives. It is considered culturally, historically, or esthetically significant.
Angela [00:02:55] Agree.
Jenna [00:02:56] Yeah! The Matrix was the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, a title that it held for 13 years, until Deadpool happened! For a movie that is rated R, The Matrix does not contain a single F-bomb.
Angela [00:03:15] Or any nudity. I mean, there's the thing in the pod, but you don't see anything.
Jenna [00:03:19] Correct. Now normally I would give a summary here, but rather than listen to me give you the plot of The Matrix in seven sentences, I thought we should hear from Keanu. Keanu spoke about what drew him into this movie and the themes of the movie so perfectly at an event. Here's what he had to say.
audio clip - Keanu Reeves [00:03:40] They had written something that I had never seen, but in a way, something that I'd always hoped for as an actor, as a fan of science fiction. The script that they wrote synthesized, to me... I'm going to be a little inside baseball here, as they say: It had Gibson, it had Verne, it has K. Dick, Frank Miller, anime, Kurosawa, Peckinpah. It was Nietzsche, it was Buddha, it was Christ. It was themes and levels. It was dualities, modalities, realities, dreams, will, destiny, freedom, slavery of the mind, of the body, the construct, who lives, who dies, identities, sexuality, viruses, and love. It was mythology, philosophy, technology, and truth. What truth?
Jenna [00:04:31] I'm so turned on right now.
Angela [00:04:33] I'm sorry. Did he just come up with that off the cuff?
Jenna [00:04:35] Yeah, he's not reading from anything. He's just talking.
Angela [00:04:40] Um... Hello.
Jenna [00:04:40] I'm, sorry. I love a smart man.
Angela [00:04:42] I mean, that is a real, "Hi how, are ya?" Woo!
Jenna [00:04:46] Someone's getting a hot flash over here and it's not the menopausal one.
Angela [00:04:49] Hello.
Jenna [00:04:50] Okay, if you're wondering how Keanu could describe the themes of the movie so well, he said that before he was even allowed to open the script, the Wachowskis had him read "Simulacra and Simulation," "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly, and "Introducing Evolutionary Psychology" by Dylan Evans.
Angela [00:05:10] I also read that they had the whole cast and crew read Simulacra and Simulation.
Jenna [00:05:15] Yeah, Carrie-Anne Moss said that she had a hard time with it.
Angela [00:05:20] Yeah, it feels a little dense, and I also think we might need to do some old school Fast Facts.
Jenna [00:05:25] Well, I've got a couple for you and I know you have one. Should I kick us off?
Angela [00:05:28] Yep.
Jenna [00:05:29] Alright, well I'm calling Fast Fact number one "Casting Trivia."
Angela [00:05:33] Okay.
Jenna [00:05:33] We all know this movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie Anne-Moss as Trinity, and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. There were other Neos considered, if you can believe it.
Angela [00:05:42] I can't. Go on.
Jenna [00:05:44] Will Smith was approached to play Neo but he turned it down to star in "Wild Wild West" and he has later, famously, talked about this choice but he said, "I was not mature enough, as an actor, to do the role." And he said that if he would have gotten it, he would have messed it up. He said that he has no regrets and he thinks Keanu was brilliant as Neo.
Angela [00:06:10] It's hard to picture anyone else being Neo.
Jenna [00:06:13] Well, can you picture Johnny Depp? Cause he was considered. How about Leonardo DiCaprio?
Angela [00:06:18] No.
Jenna [00:06:18] Brad Pitt? Ewan McGregor?
Angela [00:06:20] No.
Jenna [00:06:21] Mark Wahlberg?
Angela [00:06:22] No.
Jenna [00:06:22] Nicholas Cage?
Angela [00:06:24] No.
Jenna [00:06:25] Lou Diamond Phillips was sent the script, but his agent told him the movie would probably flop.
Angela [00:06:30] Oh no!
Jenna [00:06:32] Also, John Cusack.
Angela [00:06:33] [surprised] Oh! No.
Jenna [00:06:34] This would be such a different movie.
Angela [00:06:36] I did see, on Drew Barrymore, that Madonna said she was offered the role of Trinity and passed.
Jenna [00:06:42] Ah! You know who else passed?!
Angela [00:06:43] Who?
Jenna [00:06:45] Sandra Bullock!
Angela [00:06:46] [in disbelief] No.
Jenna [00:06:46] Yes. So when Will Smith was offered Neo, she was offered Trinity. So she turned it down. After she turned it down. Jada Pinkett Smith auditioned for Trinity. So by this time Keanu was cast as Neo, and so Jada Pinkett Smith and Keanu Reeves did a chemistry read, and she said they did not have the right chemistry. Here's what she said: "Keanu and I did not click. We just didn't have any chemistry." But she would later go on to star as Niobe in "The Matrix Reloaded."
Angela [00:07:15] Yeah, I like that they kept her in the universe. They clearly liked her.
Jenna [00:07:18] Right. Now you mentioned Madonna. Very famously, Janet Jackson was approached for the role of Trinity.
Angela [00:07:25] Wow.
Jenna [00:07:26] And she wanted to do it, like really badly, but she had all these scheduling conflicts. In an interview, she said that turning down the role of Trinity was so difficult for her. She later referenced the film in the intro and outro interludes on her 10th studio album, "Discipline." Here's some other choices for Morpheus: Val Kilmer. Gary Oldman. Samuel L. Jackson. Morgan Freeman. Denzel Washington. Robert De Niro. That's your casting trivia.
Angela [00:07:56] I just can't imagine anyone else but Keanu and Carrie-Anne.
Jenna [00:08:00] For so many reasons.
Angela [00:08:01] So many reasons.
Jenna [00:08:02] That I'm gonna talk about.
Angela [00:08:05] Okay.
Jenna [00:08:06] Fast fact number two. This film is credited as being written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. However, in the years since the movie franchise came out, both have come out as trans women. They are Lana Wachowski and Lily Wachowksy. In 2020, Lily Wachowski did an interview with Netflix Film Club, and she said that the Matrix films were an allegory for the transgender narrative. Here's a clip.
audio clip - Lana Wachowsky [00:08:36] The Matrix stuff was all about the desire for transformation, but it was all coming from a closeted point of view. So we had the character of Switch, who was a character who would be, you know, a man in the real world and then a woman in the Matrix. And, you know... [laughing] That's where our head spaces were.
Jenna [00:09:00] So, ultimately, the character of Switch does not change from male to female. I guess the studio wasn't into that idea, but Lilly said, "I'm glad that it has gotten out that this was the original intention and I love how meaningful those films are to trans people and the way they come up to me and say, 'These movies changed my life.'" And lady, I was deep diving this, and there is a great article from NPR that goes deeper into the significance of The Matrix movies for people in the transgender community. I found it to be really educational. We can link to it in our stories. I just already love this movie so much, but then to hear the ways that it has comforted a marginalized community of people was really, really moving to me.
Angela [00:09:51] I know I'm doing Fast Fact 3, and I had a clip that I was gonna play at the end, but I kind of feel like I wanna play it now. It's Keanu Reeves, it was the 25th anniversary of The Matrix, and he's on Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert is listing all of his movies, and he was like, 'We're gonna do a rapid fire, where I'm just gonna say one of your movies and you tell me your favorite moment." Like, a meaningful moment from the movie, but rapid fire. So they do "Point Break" and "Speed" and Keanu's giving just quick answers. And then he goes, "The Matrix" and it stops him and you have to hear this.
audio clip - Stephen Colbert [00:10:24] The Matrix!
audio clip - Keanu Reeves [00:10:31] [Lets out a long, deep sigh and pauses. The audience laughs.]
audio clip - Stephen Colbert [00:10:31] We'll be right back after this. [laughter and applause] And we're back.
audio clip - Keanu Reeves [00:10:41] The Matrix changed my life, and then over these years, it's changed so many other people's lives in really positive and great ways. So as an artist, you hope for that when you get to do a film or tell a story. So when in these years and the amount of people that I've met who have said to me and been touched by The Matrix in such a positive way. It's the best.
Angela [00:11:18] He was visibly moved and he couldn't rapid fire answer The Matrix.
Jenna [00:11:22] Yeah.
Angela [00:11:22] It literally took the wind out of him when Stephen Colbert said it. I just thought that was really beautiful and touches on what you were talking about, about how much it's meant to so many people.
Jenna [00:11:32] Yeah, it's this blockbuster popcorn sci-fi movie, but it goes so much deeper than that for so many.
Angela [00:11:40] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:11:40] It's really special.
Angela [00:11:41] Really special. Well now, here's my fast fact. We can't talk about The Matrix without discussing one of its sources of inspiration, and that is the 1995 Japanese anime movie "Ghost in the Shell." There are many, many articles online about this, and here's an overview of what I found. According to The Guardian, when the Wachowskis were pitching The Matrix to their producers, they played them a DVD of an 82-minute Japanese cartoon and said, "We want to do this, but for real."
[00:12:16] The film was Ghost in the Shell. It defined a visual identity for cyberpunk cinema. There are big fans of this movie: James Cameron, Steven Spielberg. Other articles said Ghost in The Shell influenced many of the movies you watch and how we think about the future of technology and humanity, for decades. The Wachowskis openly cited this movie as an inspiration for The Matrix. There are several examples, like the digital rain, those green numbers that scroll in the sequence. That was in Ghost in the Shell. According to this article, when you watch The Matrix version, there are reversed Japanese characters, a shout out to Ghost in The Shell.
Jenna [00:12:54] Oh, I love that, lady!
Angela [00:12:55] Yeah, and there's other things too. There are many similarities of the plug in the back of the neck, that famous Matrix lobby scene, and also the question of what is real and what is virtual, and whether the difference even matters. Those themes are at the heart of both of these movies.
Jenna [00:13:13] Well, I love that. Well lady, there are four commentary tracks for this movie. There is a philosopher's commentary, a critic's commentary, a cast and crew commentary (with Carrie-Anne Moss, Zach Stainberg the editor, and John Guetta the vfx artist I don't know if I'm saying their names right), and there is also a composer commentary. I watched none of them. I watched none of them, lady, because I just wanted to watch the movie. I just wanted to enjoy it.
Angela [00:13:47] And here's the thing: we are not the experts of this movie and there are many people who know this movie backwards and forwards and every nuance of it. We are just your two favorite aunts who really wanted to watch The Matrix.
Jenna [00:13:59] There you go!
Angela [00:14:00] And that's gonna be our come-from through this, we're gonna have little things that we highlight here and there. And, like you Jenna, I saw some of these extras, too. I was fascinated. There are many mini extras that are just all the action sequences. I only had one that I really wanted to share about and that's the pod. We'll get to that.
Jenna [00:14:17] Lady, are you kidding me? That's the one I watched! I bet we watched the same one.
Angela [00:14:24] Oh, I bet we did. When we decided to rewatch this for the podcast my kids wanted to watch it with me They're teenagers, you know? It was so fun to watch this with Isabel and Jack. They're 17 and this was just such a fun family watch but that pod scene... They were both like, "Wait, what is happening?"
Jenna [00:14:45] Yeah. Well, why don't we take a break and then we come back. We will start breaking down The Matrix.
Angela [00:14:50] Yes, and you guys, I have a really fun The Office crossover to The Matrix, thanks to some deleted scenes from the finale that Dave Rogers helped me find. We'll be back.
audio cue [00:15:11] [musical sting]
Angela [00:15:11] As you guys know, The Matrix came out in 1999. I wanted to share with you that I saw this movie opening weekend. I went with a huge group of friends, both from my improv and sketch comedy classes. We all went as a group. We saw it at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and at Mann's Chinese Theater at this time, you didn't get assigned seats with your ticket. You had to line up outside and the line went outside and around the corner. We went early to stand in line and there was just such this buzz. Our tickets were for, like, the 11 o'clock screening.
[00:15:44] It was the late screening. It was totally sold out and I'll just never forget the moment. There's one thing I'm gonna share later when we get to something that happened in the theater when something happened on screen. But just the buzz, like you said Jenna, seeing the green Warner Brothers logo, being in that full crowd. We had no idea what to expect. No one had seen this kind of movie making or technology. I think about that, we all have movies that we went and saw at the theater that you will never forget. That was this one for me.
Jenna [00:16:16] Yeah, you know, for me, that movie is "Jurassic Park."
Angela [00:16:19] Oh, yeah.
Jenna [00:16:20] I saw it by myself in a theater. I was doing summer stock theater in Kansas and I had a day off and I was like, "I wanna see this movie everyone's talking about." Oh my God, it scared the bejesus out of me and the effects were so cool. But yes, I love that this was one of those movies for you.
Angela [00:16:39] Yeah.
Jenna [00:16:40] Well, listen Angie, you played the beginning of this movie in our top of show. Here's what's gonna happen: after you hear that little conversation, we see armed men who are gonna start flooding a dark hallway.
Angela [00:16:53] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:16:54] They're after someone. They bust open the store and we see this woman,
Angela [00:16:59] from the back, sitting at a chair.
Jenna [00:17:01] Yes, facing the wall, dressed in head to toe leather. They tell her to put her hands up and she does.
Angela [00:17:07] She's about to open a can of whoop-ass.
Jenna [00:17:09] She is. Well, this is one of my favorite moments when we go outside and there's all these special agents who have arrived and they're talking to cops. We don't know who anybody is. We don't know if she's good, we don't if she is bad.
Angela [00:17:23] "Jurisdiction my ass!" He says something like that, the old cop. The agent's like, "Um..."
Jenna [00:17:27] Yeah, he's like, "I think we can handle one little girl." And the special agents are like, "No lieutenant, your men are already dead."
Angela [00:17:37] And then it cuts to her and she is kicking everyone's ass. I need to point out, at 00:03:21, her high kick that knocks the man out behind her?
Jenna [00:17:48] Yeah, she kicks to the front. But it's, like, she kicks over her shoulder into his face.
Angela [00:17:54] And hits his head. He's behind her.
Jenna [00:17:56] It's pretty amazing.
Angela [00:17:57] It's amazing.
Jenna [00:17:57] I guess this opening action sequence took six months of training, and it took four days to shoot.
Angela [00:18:04] Six months... Man.
Jenna [00:18:05] Have you ever had to train to do a movie? Have you trained for something?
Angela [00:18:09] Look at me.
Jenna [00:18:10] But I mean, anything!
Angela [00:18:12] I'm 5' 1".
Jenna [00:18:13] I don't know! I had to learn how to ice skate for "Blades of Glory." That's a kind of training. I learned guitar for "Walk Hard," even though I never played in the movie. Have you ever learned a skill or trained?
Angela [00:18:24] I had to make a lot of ham sandwiches.
Jenna [00:18:29] [laughing] For what project?
Angela [00:18:30] My Hallmark Christmas movie. We had a sandwich line, like, an assembly line.
Jenna [00:18:35] So do you make a great ham sandwich now?
Angela [00:18:37] I mean, better than in the movie.
Jenna [00:18:39] Is your ham sandwich as good as Carrie-Anne Moss's kick to the guy in the head? Like, is it comparable?
Angela [00:18:47] Oh, yeah. I could kick my ham sandwich like she kicked that chair and take out three people.
Jenna [00:18:52] Amazing.
Angela [00:18:53] Well, in this scene, Trinity is going to call Morpheus. And she's going to say, "Listen, the line was tapped, and they're coming for me." He tells her a phone that she's got to get to, right?
Jenna [00:19:05] Yeah, this phone booth.
Angela [00:19:05] This phone booth, and they are coming for her. The agents are there and they are running after her. She goes flying down the stairway. She lands on her back. She looks up at the door, just like waiting. Are they there? Are they about to get me? And she lays there for a minute and Carrie-Anne Moss, in one moment, is so powerful and vulnerable.
Jenna [00:19:27] Mm-hmm. I know the moment you're talking about.
Angela [00:19:30] I think about it, when she goes, "Get up Trinity. Get up."
Jenna [00:19:35] Well listen, she's gonna get to this phone booth on the street, but the agents are gonna ram it with a truck. But guess what? She disappeared, she got out. We don't know what that means yet. But I remember this opening sequence, and I was like, "What the fuck is this movie?"
Angela [00:19:50] What is happening?
Jenna [00:19:51] "I am so in." First of all, it opened with an ass-kicking woman.
Angela [00:19:56] Yeah, in some badass looking pants.
Jenna [00:19:59] And then all of this and then she disappears. Amazing.
Angela [00:20:02] Amazing.
Jenna [00:20:03] Well, now we're gonna see more green code.
Angela [00:20:05] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:20:05] And we're gonna go to the small cluttered apartment of Thomas Anderson, a.k.a. Neo. Lady, here's what I wrote in my document: "Good Lord, Keanu is beautiful."
Angela [00:20:16] Yeah, he's beautiful.
Jenna [00:20:18] Beautiful.
Angela [00:20:18] He's beautiful. You know what I wrote? "Neo, clean up your apartment." It's kind of messy.
Jenna [00:20:24] You know what? I don't care about your mess, Neo. I say that, but I actually do.
Angela [00:20:30] You do care about the mess.
Jenna [00:20:31] I wouldn't be able to date Neo in his current apartment.
Angela [00:20:34] Not right there.
Jenna [00:20:35] No, too cluttered.
Angela [00:20:38] Beautiful sleeping Neo, next to him is a computer screen and we're gonna hear a ping and there's a message that says, "Wake up, Neo" on his computer.
Jenna [00:20:49] Yeah, and then it says, "The Matrix has you. Follow the white rabbit." He's like, "What?" And it says "Knock, knock, Neo."
Angela [00:20:58] And there's a knock at the door! And then he looks at the door and he looks back at his computer screen, and now it's blank.
Jenna [00:21:04] Well, it's this guy at the door, and I guess he gives Neo a bunch of cash for some kind of disk. I'm assuming this is a hacker thing.
Angela [00:21:12] Yeah, this is Neo's side hustle, right?
Jenna [00:21:15] Right.
Angela [00:21:15] He goes to get the disk out of a book and guess what the book is?
Jenna [00:21:19] What?
Angela [00:21:21] Simulacra and Simulation.
Jenna [00:21:21] [surprised] Ohhh! It's all hollowed out though.
Angela [00:21:24] It's hollowed out. The chapter that's hollow out says "On Nihilism."
Jenna [00:21:30] I bet that means something.
Angela [00:21:31] It's an Easter egg.
Jenna [00:21:33] I'm not smart enough to know. Well, these guys are gonna invite Neo to come out with them because they say, "You don't look great, buddy."
Angela [00:21:39] You need to unplug, you know, get some R&R.
Jenna [00:21:42] He's like, "No," but then this awesome punk rock-looking chick is like, "Come on, you should go." She's all pouty, and she puts her arm up, and she's got a white rabbit tattoo.
Angela [00:21:52] On her shoulder.
Jenna [00:21:54] "Follow the white rabbit."
Angela [00:21:55] So Neo's like, "Okay, I'm in."
Jenna [00:21:56] Would you go?
Angela [00:21:58] Yeah, I would.
Jenna [00:21:59] You would? If you saw the tattoo?
Angela [00:22:01] Yeah, I would.
Jenna [00:22:01] I think I would too.
Angela [00:22:03] Well, where they go is a really loud club. There's music thumping. It's, like, heavy metal. There's cages, strobe lights, lots of leather, maybe some S&M? [laughing] Can I tell you...?
Jenna [00:22:15] What are you gonna say?
Angela [00:22:17] My son turned to me and said, "This is how he unplugs? It does not look relaxing."
Jenna [00:22:25] I was going to ask you if this place reminded you of anything, because I saw the scene and my first thought was that Keanu is in a lot of movies that have scenes in rave bars.
Angela [00:22:35] Oh yeah, I mean all of "John Wick."
Jenna [00:22:38] It's a thing. But I have personally never been to a bar like this in my life, have you?
Angela [00:22:42] Well, yeah, maybe one time.
Jenna [00:22:43] I wonder if it's the same time, because...
Angela [00:22:46] Let's say it at the same time.
Jenna [00:22:47] Okay, [in unison with Angela] one, two, three: my bachelorette.
Angela [00:22:50] But we hadn't planned on going there. Remember, we went out to dinner, and then you were like, "Let's go dancing." Then I called a friend who was like, "Oh, I can get you into a club." We didn't know anything about this club.
Jenna [00:23:02] Well, it wasn't a punk rock underground dance club. It was more of a... I don't know what you call it.
Angela [00:23:09] Vibe-y.
Jenna [00:23:09] It was vibier.
Angela [00:23:11] Yeah, and we were not dressed for it. We were dressed for a ladies dinner.
Jenna [00:23:15] And then we saw that really big actor (who shall go unnamed) who was kind of a creep.
Angela [00:23:21] And he had a ridiculous hat on. I remember I was like, "Your hat's ridiculous."
Jenna [00:23:25] I swear to God, he was there alone.
Angela [00:23:27] He was!
Jenna [00:23:28] He was there, alone,
Angela [00:23:30] And he was just kind of lurking.
Jenna [00:23:30] He was dancing up on women.
Angela [00:23:31] Yes, yes.
Jenna [00:23:32] This is my memory.
Angela [00:23:32] I stood up on the back. We were in a booth that had, like, no back. You know what I mean?
Jenna [00:23:41] I do because at one point someone sat on the back of it and fell off.
Angela [00:23:46] No, no, no. I stood on top of it to dance.
Jenna [00:23:49] Oh.
Angela [00:23:49] And I fell off.
Jenna [00:23:50] Then you fell.
Angela [00:23:50] And I jumped right back, up and then people cheered.
Jenna [00:23:57] You did. Well, Neo is off to the side wondering why he was supposed to come here and he is approached by Trinity.
Angela [00:24:03] He's like, "You're the Trinity, the one that cracked the IRS D base?" She's like, "That was a long time ago."
Jenna [00:24:10] He's like, "I thought you were a man." She's like, "Most guys do."
Angela [00:24:13] Mm-hmm. He realizes now, it was her communicating through the computer. He's like, "How did you do that?" This is what I call "sexy whisper time."
Jenna [00:24:23] Oh yeah, she gets right up in his ear.
Angela [00:24:26] And she knows that he's been looking for Morpheus because she was once in the same position. Because he wants the answer to the question, "What is the matrix?"
Jenna [00:24:35] It's just two gorgeous people whispering to each other in a rave.
Angela [00:24:38] Yeah, two gorgeous people in a rave, whispering. Well, now it cuts to the next morning. Neo has overslept his alarm, he's late for work, and then he's at work and he's just got this really boring boss telling him that he needs to do better. The whole time, there's these window washers. It really stressed me out.
Jenna [00:24:55] Yeah, because they're like [making sharp squeaky noises] "Screech!" Well, she sort of said something that has gotten him on high alert. What did Trinity say to him in the club? She says, "They're watching you."
Angela [00:25:09] She says, "I've been brought here to warn you." So he's in his head.
Jenna [00:25:12] He is. His boss is gonna be like, "You have a choice: be on time for work or find another job." I noticed the language in the scene is about Neo having a choice, and he's gonna have another choice soon. I just found that very interesting. These choices of, like, "toe the line or this."
Angela [00:25:35] He ends up at his tiny depressing cubicle, and a FedEx delivery guy comes.
Jenna [00:25:40] I want to give him a shout out. He was played by David O'Connor and I just wanted to say that because we never see the guy's face.
Angela [00:25:46] He's just business. Although he does tell Neo to have a nice day and that freaks out Neo. Did you see his face? He's like, "Why is he telling me to have nice day?" In the package is a Nokia cell phone. It rings and then he clicks it open and it makes such a satisfying click. It really made me miss my old flip phone.
Jenna [00:26:06] I have a fun fact about that phone, lady. OK, so that is a Nokia 8110 cell phone. At that time, it had no spring mechanism on the little receiver part. That was added for the movie. That feature became so popular from people who were watching the movie, that Nokia added it!
Angela [00:26:26] Well, I'm here for it. I liked the click. I miss those kind of phones.
Jenna [00:26:31] Guess who's on the phone.
Angela [00:26:32] Morpheus.
Jenna [00:26:33] Yep.
Angela [00:26:33] I looked up what Morpheus means.
Jenna [00:26:35] What's it mean?
Angela [00:26:36] Greek god of dreams.
Jenna [00:26:38] Oh.
Angela [00:26:39] "Are you in a dream state? Are you awake, Neo?"
Jenna [00:26:42] Right now, he sort of has one foot in each place. Morpheus is really calm, but he says, "Listen, they're coming for you. Stand up slowly."
Angela [00:26:53] Yeah, you're gonna see some agents and listen to me I'm gonna get you out of here. But you got to get down low and I'm going to guide you out to this balcony. Then you're going to have to shimmy, like, on a the side of a building and then get on what is that? The windshield washer thing?
Jenna [00:27:12] Yeah.
Angela [00:27:12] And he's like, "What?"
Jenna [00:27:14] Lady, I read that Keanu Reeves actually climbed out of a real window that was 34 floors up, without a stunt man.
Angela [00:27:22] Keanu, stop it.
Jenna [00:27:23] That was just a building in Australia. They shot this in Australia, I don't know. Well, he's like, "F this." He goes back in the window and now you see him being escorted out of the building in handcuffs. They got him.
Angela [00:27:36] They got him.
Jenna [00:27:37] Trinity is watching, she's on her motorcycle. She sees it all, "Damn it."
Angela [00:27:42] Yeah, "Shit." Now Neo is in a cold, sterile room.
Jenna [00:27:46] He's being interrogated.
Angela [00:27:47] Yeah, this agent drops a big folder on him, on the desk, and slowly opens it. I have to give a shout out to Hugo Weaving, who plays Agent Smith. He is one of my favorite characters and I feel like watching this performance is like taking a master class in acting. Everything he does with his face, and in particular the cadence in which he speaks. It is such a disciplined, nuanced performance and I just want to play a minute of him talking, so you can just hear how thoughtful he is as a performer and how he's created how Agent Smith speaks.
audio clip from The Matrix - Agent Smith [00:28:24] As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're Thomas A. Anderson: program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes. You help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
Jenna [00:29:16] Okay, I'm so glad you played that clip because also, that's another example of "you have a choice between two lives" and I'm really seeing the allegory here. Because it's either a life within the expected boundaries, or you will suffer. But he wants to live the other life.
Angela [00:29:36] He does.
Jenna [00:29:37] He wants the truthful life. It is not his truth to be at this stupid job. It's his truth to be a computer hacker, to be real, to be authentic.
Angela [00:29:47] Mm-hmm, and he's a creative person and he's looking for that outlet. But come on, Hugo Weaving. Come on.
Jenna [00:29:53] So good.
Angela [00:29:54] So good.
Jenna [00:29:55] Neo is gonna give him the finger.
Angela [00:29:58] Yeah, and then they're gonna just really freak him out because they seal his mouth shut.
Jenna [00:30:02] They do.
Angela [00:30:03] With his own skin.
Jenna [00:30:05] Yeah, that was so freaky when I saw that the first time.
Angela [00:30:08] Then they restrain him and they open up his shirt and they get out this mechanical bug. It's so disgusting. It looks like part spider, part scorpion kind of thing. And it goes into his belly button!
Jenna [00:30:22] You never want anything to go into your belly button
Angela [00:30:26] And it disappears, it's so gross. I titled that scene, "Hell no."
Jenna [00:30:31] Well, here's the thing. They want Neo to help them find Morpheus. That's right. Since he won't do it, now they're going to track him.
Angela [00:30:38] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:30:39] All right, well, Neo is gonna wake up in bed. It was all a dream, that's what he thinks.
Angela [00:30:43] Yeah, a horrible dream.
Jenna [00:30:44] Oh God, yes, and it's raining outside. His phone rings, it's Morpheus. It wasn't a dream. Morpheus just flat out says, "Neo, you're the one," on the phone call. "I've been looking for you my whole life."
Angela [00:30:56] "And if they knew how important you were, you'd be dead."
Jenna [00:31:00] Yeah. You know, Neo is an anagram?
Angela [00:31:02] For "one."
Jenna [00:31:03] Yeah.
Angela [00:31:03] And his apartment number is 101 which can also be seen as a binary number because the 0's and the 1's are used by computers to store information. 101 is also the binary representation of the number five, which in computing is the sixth number as counting begins from zero. Some people see symbolism in this, as the three films are set in the sixth generation of the matrix and Neo is the sixth person to be "the one" because Zion has been destroyed five times before.
Jenna [00:31:31] Wow.
Angela [00:31:32] Yeah, these are things we found online.
Jenna [00:31:37] Well, Morpheus tells Neo to go meet him at the Adams Street bridge.
Angela [00:31:40] Didn't you love this opening shot of just that rain pouring over the bridge and him standing under it?
Jenna [00:31:46] I did. A car's gonna pull up, Trinity is inside, and there's also two other people in the car, in the front seat.
Angela [00:31:53] It's Apoc and Switch. And they want him to take his shirt off because they think he's bugged.
Jenna [00:31:58] I mean, she pulls out a gun, Switch pulls out a gun and says, 'Take your shirt off." Because they have to make sure he's not bugged.
Angela [00:32:04] Yeah and she's like, "Look, there's only one rule right now: our way or the highway." Neo is like, "Fine," and he starts to get out of the car. One of my favorite Trinity quotes right here.
Jenna [00:32:13] What is it?
Angela [00:32:13] She says, "Please, Neo, you have to trust me. Because you've been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be." I like the metaphor.
Jenna [00:32:27] He stays in the car.
Angela [00:32:28] He does. At 00:23:46, when Neo looks out the window to look down the road, you can see Keanu has two ear piercings in his left ear. I looked it up. There are many pictures of him in the 80's with two earrings in his left ear. I did the same thing. Did you do that, lady?
Jenna [00:32:45] I did not, I just have a single piercing in both ears.
Angela [00:32:48] I have two piercings in both ears and I never put anything in the second one.
Jenna [00:32:52] Does it still work or has it closed up?
Angela [00:32:54] I think it's half, I'm not gonna try it.
Jenna [00:32:56] Yeah, you'd have to poke through that. You don't want to do that.
Angela [00:32:59] Not interested.
Jenna [00:33:00] Well, here's what I noticed in the backseat of this car. We're really seeing Trinity and Neo side by side here. Because it's been raining, Neo's hair is kind of wet and slick, which is very similar to Trinity. And I was like, "Neo and Trinity look very similar" and I wondered if this was intentional.
Angela [00:33:17] I think so.
Jenna [00:33:18] It was. I guess it is supposed to symbolize their interconnectedness and the idea that they are two halves of a whole. It's also supposed to show that they become stronger together. Some say, though, that all of the characters in the movie are actually part of Neo. So they say Cypher (who we haven't met yet but who's the bad guy) is Neo's Id and his doubt. A cypher is literally a secret, that's what that means. Morpheus represents his Super Ego. Trinity is Neo's self-actualization. Trinity is the person that Neo wishes to be. So, which makes sense to me because when I was looking at them side by side in the car, I was like, "Oh, she is a little bit like Neo 2.0." Like, he's in cotton, she's in leather, you know? His hair is sort of messy-wet, hers is slick-wet.
Angela [00:34:12] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:34:13] Right? Like, she's the polished version.
Angela [00:34:16] Mm-hmm, there's a lot a symbolism. I do like this idea of those couples that are so happy and they're old and they just start to dress alike.
Jenna [00:34:28] That's me and Lee.
Angela [00:34:29] Are you starting to dress alike?
Jenna [00:34:30] Oh lady, we have very often gotten dressed separately and then we meet downstairs and we're in the same color tones, same general outfit idea. We're very matchy. Is this you and Josh? Or no?
Angela [00:34:48] No cause Josh is too...
Jenna [00:34:49] He's sporty.
Angela [00:34:53] He's so sporty.
Jenna [00:34:53] Yeah. Well, I guess Lee and I are our own version of Neo and Trinity.
Angela [00:34:57] There you go.
Jenna [00:34:58] I'll take it
Angela [00:34:59] There you go. Well guess what? Trinity finds the bug. Really grossly, this thing gets sucked out of his belly button and then they toss it on the street and the little red eye on it slowly goes out.
Jenna [00:35:14] So now they're gonna take Neo to this broken down house place thing.
Angela [00:35:20] Nice description.
Jenna [00:35:22] [laughing] You know what? I was like, "I guess they have to always hide out" but everywhere they are is falling apart.
Angela [00:35:28] It looks like an abandoned building.
Jenna [00:35:30] Sure.
Angela [00:35:31] Right before they walk in the door, she says, "Listen, I'm gonna give you a piece of advice. Be honest. He knows more than you can imagine," and then Neo opens the door and there's this dimly lit room. It looks a living room. There's these old weathered leather chairs with a coffee table in the middle,
Jenna [00:35:47] Yeah, but the plasters coming off the wall, it's shabby.
Angela [00:35:51] It's busted. It's a little busted, but there's Morpheus and he says, "At last, welcome Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus." Neo shakes his hands. He says, "It's an honor to meet you."
Jenna [00:36:04] Yeah, he asks Neo if he believes in fate and Neo says, "No, because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life."
Angela [00:36:13] Uh-oh, Neo.
Jenna [00:36:15] And then he says, "Do you want me to tell you what the Matrix is?" And I got an audio clip. I thought we should hear it.
audio clip from The Matrix - Morpheus [00:36:23] The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work. When you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [00:36:52] What truth?
audio clip from The Matrix - Morpheus [00:36:57] That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch: a prison for your mind.
Jenna [00:37:15] I mean, if someone said that to you, I don't even know what to do with that information. I'd be like, what?
Angela [00:37:20] What? Yeah.
Jenna [00:37:21] And then he says, "but no one can really be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
Angela [00:37:26] Yeah.
Jenna [00:37:27] So he presents Neo with two pills: one red and one blue. He can either take the red pill to learn the truth, or take the blue pill and just return to his old life.
Angela [00:37:39] He will have forgotten everything.
Jenna [00:37:42] Which one do you take?
Angela [00:37:44] Well, listen, if I had just had a robotic scorpion sucked out of my belly button, I'd take the red pill.
Jenna [00:37:56] You would? You would learn the truth?
Angela [00:37:58] Yes.
Jenna [00:37:58] You'd take the red pill.
Angela [00:37:59] I would.
Jenna [00:38:00] Sam, Cassi, which pill are you taking?
Cassi [00:38:02] I agree with Angela. I'd wanna know what's going on after that traumatic experience.
Sam [00:38:08] Yeah, I'd take the red.
Angela [00:38:09] Jenna?
Jenna [00:38:10] I was gonna say blue... But now that you put it into that context and I'm realizing my moment before, I think maybe I would probably wanna take the red. But in general, I don't wanna take either pill.
Angela [00:38:24] Right.
Jenna [00:38:24] I don't wanna take any pills from anyone. I only wanna take pills that were prescribed by my doctor.
Angela [00:38:32] Now listen,
Jenna [00:38:33] You know what I'm saying?
Angela [00:38:34] You're stepping out of the movie now,
Jenna [00:38:35] But I'm very suspicious!
Angela [00:38:36] I know, but you're stepping into mom out of the movie, like, "don't take something anyone hands you." I get that. We're in the matrix. A robot scorpion just came out of your belly button. You got to table the mom thought for a moment.
Sam [00:38:51] Well Jenna, is this because he doesn't offer him a glass of water?
Jenna [00:38:54] There's water on the table next to him.
Sam [00:38:55] Okay, good.
Angela [00:38:56] Yeah, there's a full glass of water. Well, I know what pill Dwight would take.
Jenna [00:39:01] You do?
Angela [00:39:02] I do. Here is what I teased at the top of our breakdown: when we were revisiting the finale for our rewatch, I found a few pictures of a warehouse set up to look like this very scene with the leather distressed chairs and the coffee table. There, sitting in the room, were Hank and Dwight. They were photographed. There was an on-set photographer. These pictures I found on the NBC website.
Jenna [00:39:27] Did they immediately look like The Matrix? Were you like, "What's going on? This looks like The Matrix?"
Angela [00:39:32] Oh, it's 100% The Matrix. So I remember going to the deleted scenes for the finale and they weren't in there and I saved these pictures. When we decided to re-watch The Matrix, I reached out to Dave Rogers and I sent him one of the pictures. And I was like, "What is this about? Like, they're not in deleted scenes. I'm trying to find it in a shooting draft." And he said, "Actually, this was a cold open that we shot." And then I found it in the very first table draft script, lady. And I read it. Not only am I gonna read you the setup for the scene, I'm also gonna play part of it for you.
Jenna [00:40:05] I love this.
Script [00:40:08] [Interior, Dwight's office, morning] Dwight works, all business. He glances out to the bullpen and sees a black cat run by his door. Dwight registers this as odd, but lets it go. A beat later, the same cat crosses the same exact way. Dwight leans back, he seems shaken. Jim and Pam, joint talking head.
[00:40:26] Jim: what's the cat about? Fair question. The last few months, Dwight has been running things well. Business is booming. All is good. Then a little voice inside me said, "Jim, what about the pranks?"
Angela [00:40:39] And then Jim goes on to share maybe one last big one.
Script [00:40:43] Pam: That's when we knew, somehow, he had to get Dwight into the Matrix.
Jenna [00:40:48] Oh my gosh, this is a huge Jim prank.
Angela [00:40:52] A huge Jim prank that Pam is in on. Pam, we find out, learns to train the cats to do this move. Jim does a whole bunch of stuff on Dwight's computer, kind of like the way Trinity reached out to him. This is a very long cold open. It's, like, five minutes long. Dave Rogers said he's actually going to put it back in. It is going to be in the super fan version of the finale.
Jenna [00:41:12] Oh, that's so fun.
Angela [00:41:14] I know. But for now, part of it does live online. I found it on YouTube and I just want you to hear the moment they have convinced Dwight that The Matrix is real and he's gone to meet Hank who's playing... Well, you'll hear:
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:41:33] Hello?
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:41:33] Meet me in the warehouse, but watch out for the men in reception.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:41:37] There's no man at reception... [Dwight gasps]
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:41:44] Meet me in the warehouse.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:42:00] [clattering] Hank?
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:42:00] That is the name I allowed you to know me by while I watched over you, waiting for the time to approach. That time has come, and now you may know my real name, Dorpheus.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:42:13] Dorpheus?
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:42:14] I'm Morpheus' brother.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:42:23] The Matrix isn't real. It's a trilogy of flawless life-changing films... And an online game.
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:42:30] The first Matrix movie was a program, written by my team, to prepare people for the truth. But then the machines countered with their own program to make it seem as if a peace was achieved.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:42:42] So, there is no peace?
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:42:45] There is not.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:42:46] Oh, that is terrible news.
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:42:48] Dwight, we need your help. I would like you to join my underground army and help us wage war for the freedom of all humankind.
audio clip from The Office - Pam [00:42:58] Hank is good on his feet.
audio clip from The Office - Jim [00:42:59] Right? I told you he'd nail it!
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:43:04] If you take the blue pill, you will stay in the Matrix. You will remember none of this. Life will go on as it is for you. If you'll take the red pill, I will open your eyes and you will see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:43:26] I'll take the blue pill.
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:43:28] Wait, now the blue will keep you in the program. The red's the cool one.
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:43:34] I understand, I'd like the blue pill, please.
audio clip from The Office - Hank [00:43:37] Well maybe I didn't explain myself clearly...
audio clip from The Office - Dwight [00:43:38] No, Dorpheus, you were very clear. It's just... I really appreciate the work that you and your brother are doing. Appreciate's too small a word, but the timing is terrible right now. They just promoted me to manager, plus I own this building. I run a very substantial farm, and I'm getting married soon. To a woman I love. And okay, yeah, maybe that love is just zeros and ones, but I don't wanna lose it. No one hates machines more than me. But I'm happy. I'm truly happy.
audio clip from The Office - Pam [00:44:14] Aww.
audio clip from The Office - Jim [00:44:15] Are you kidding me? I hired 30 people!
Jenna [00:44:22] The blue pill! I did not see that coming!
Angela [00:44:23] I know! Dwight takes the blue pill because he wants to stay happy. He loves his life. You can hear Jim and Pam because they're watching it on a monitor. But yeah, it was an elaborate prank. I mean, I don't know how much money Jim spent on that one.
Jenna [00:44:39] Oh, yeah.
Angela [00:44:40] Uh-huh.
Jenna [00:44:41] He hired 30 people.
Angela [00:44:42] 30 people. So there you go, a little The Office/The Matrix crossover.
Jenna [00:44:47] Well, I love that lady. Why don't we take a break, and when we come back, we'll talk about which pill Neo chose.
audio cue [00:45:06] [musical sting]
Jenna [00:45:06] We're back and guess what? Neo takes the red pill.
Angela [00:45:09] Yeah, and then Morpheus takes him into this back room that's got a lot of computers and gadgets and stuff.
Jenna [00:45:16] Yeah, they hook him up to what seems like an EKG kind of a machine. They're gonna have to keep an eye on his vital signs because as this virtual world starts to break down in front of his eyes, literally, the mirror becomes all gummy that he's looking at. They need to make sure that he doesn't freak himself out so much that he -
Angela [00:45:37] Goes into shock or something and his heart stops.
Jenna [00:45:41] Yeah, exactly.
Angela [00:45:41] Well, Morpheus says, "Look, the pill you took is part of a tracing program. It's designed to disrupt your input-output carrier signals," so they can pinpoint his location in the pod field.
Jenna [00:45:52] The pod field.
Angela [00:45:53] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:45:54] Yeah, because that's where he really is and we're gonna see him wake up in this pod of goo.
Angela [00:46:01] Of goo, with all these tubes and-
Jenna [00:46:05] He's naked!
Angela [00:46:05] He's naked! This scene is so amazing, it's something I still think about.
Jenna [00:46:14] Yeah, this big mechanical bug comes over and it starts to choke him but then it starts - All the tubes that are attached to him start popping off.
Angela [00:46:22] Oh lady!
Jenna [00:46:23] And listen, I know that I said I wasn't gonna look stuff up but I looked this up!
Angela [00:46:27] Me too, because the scene is just bonkers. It's so cool.
Jenna [00:46:30] Did you watch the YouTube video about how they did this scene? Did we watch the same thing?
Angela [00:46:36] I think we did.
Jenna [00:46:37] With the water slide?
Angela [00:46:38] They built a slide! I just wanna share what a phenomenal physical actor Keanu is.
Jenna [00:46:43] Oh yeah, that's him in the pod.
Angela [00:46:45] That's him in the pod, that spider thing that detaches from him didn't exist.
Jenna [00:46:50] There wasn't even a thing with tennis balls on it. There was nothing grabbing his neck at all.
Angela [00:46:56] He just is reacting. They're calling out different things for him and he's reacting to nothing. Even so much so when he grabs around his neck, when it claws around his back.
Jenna [00:47:07] Yeah, that's what I was saying! He's grabbing nothing!
Angela [00:47:10] The whole time he's in this pod and they're doing different takes, there's someone with a bucket (a literal bucket of clear goo) that they're dumping on him.
Jenna [00:47:18] Yeah, they're just slopping the goo back on. Did you read that Keanu shaved his entire body, including his eyebrows, and lost 15 pounds for this part of the movie?
Angela [00:47:29] Yes, I did. That's crazy. And that this scene concluded principal photography for the movie.
Jenna [00:47:36] Well, that makes sense.
Angela [00:47:37] Yeah, because he had to shave his body and he really went down the tube into the water.
Jenna [00:47:44] They made this whole water slide. When I was watching it I was like, "Wait, I two people come out the bottom: Keanu and then a guy with a camera." I think there was a cameraman who went down the slide with him, which is crazy.
Angela [00:47:56] Amazing.
Jenna [00:47:57] I mean, "how was your day at work, babe?"
Angela [00:47:59] "I went down a goo slide." So here's the thing. There's all this physicality happening. But at the same time, there's also this real realization as he looks over the edge and he sees pod after pod after pod, and these machines kind of tending to them. There's little tiny spider ones. There's the big ones. It's a whole system of machines harvesting humans. I found this really great account called "The Art of Storytelling." And he sums up this moment and I wanna share it with you:
[00:48:35] "So in the span of two and a half minutes, we've witnessed the birth of a prophet, a nightmarish vision of man's self-destruction and a fragile hope for the salvation of humanity, all without a single word of dialog. Relying only on the artistry and ingenuity of production designers, VFX artists, musicians, sound designers, editors, and (of course) the incredible dedication of Keanu Reeves. If this scene isn't a masterclass in how to affect an audience using the medium of cinema, I don't know what is."
Jenna [00:49:09] Mic drop.
Angela [00:49:09] Great YouTube summary of this scene. I'll share it in our stories.
Jenna [00:49:14] Now Neo is brought aboard a ship. This is the real world. He's greeted by Morpheus and Trinity, and he's like, "Am I dead?" And they're like, "You're not dead."
Angela [00:49:24] Yeah, the ship is the Nebuchadnezzar, which means "protect my heir."
Jenna [00:49:29] Okay, sure.
Angela [00:49:29] How about that?
Jenna [00:49:29] He has to get strong. He's gonna get so much acupuncture, you've never seen someone with so much acupuncture in your life.
Angela [00:49:38] They're rebuilding his muscles. They've atrophied.
Jenna [00:49:40] I've been getting acupuncture, lady.
Angela [00:49:42] You really love it. You should share.
Jenna [00:49:46] For my hot flashes. Okay, because I'm taking Tamoxifen for my breast cancer treatment and a big side effect is hot flashes and I can't take anything for them. When you go into menopause, you can do hormone replacement therapy. I can't. The whole point of the medicine I'm taking is to UNREPLACE my hormones.
Angela [00:50:02] Mhm.
Jenna [00:50:04] To suppress my estrogen. So I am white-knuckling my way through this and the hot flashes are so bad and I started going to acupuncture and I love it.
Angela [00:50:15] You said they've, like, stopped.
Jenna [00:50:16] They have stopped.
Angela [00:50:17] That's crazy.
Jenna [00:50:19] I used to wake up four to five times a night, completely drenched. So I'm sitting there, I'm watching Neo with his 25,000 acupuncture needles and I'm thinking, "Neo, you're gonna be great. This is gonna work out for you. Trust me."
Angela [00:50:36] And you're not gonna have hot flashes.
Jenna [00:50:37] He's not gonna have any.
Angela [00:50:39] He does say, "Why do my eyes hurt?"
Jenna [00:50:41] Because they've never seen anything before.
Angela [00:50:43] Morpheus says, "You've never used them before." How crazy is that?
Jenna [00:50:46] I know. So now, some time has passed and Neo is gonna wake up. He's dressed, he's on a cot of some sort. I have to say something here. So they can create so many things in this world,
Angela [00:51:02] Is it about his wardrobe?
Jenna [00:51:03] Why can't they make a sweater without a hole in it?
Angela [00:51:06] I said, "Why does everyone have an old pair of long johns. Like, kind of waffle-y, long sleeve, and they all have holes?"
Jenna [00:51:15] This was my big complaint about "The Last of Us." This was very hard for me on The Last Of Us. I understand that the virus took over and we've had to live behind walls in these little makeshift communities. But did we lose our ability to sweep a floor or dust a shelf? But by the way, we have made matching outfits for people in our new government and we've made new currency and all kinds of badges and things. Where? Where are we making those? And yet in the place that we're living all the time, no one swept a floor. I didn't get it, why? Everything was.. It was so dirty!
Angela [00:51:57] No, I know.
Jenna [00:51:58] You know what I'm saying? And by the way, we're gonna get to the food. I have the same complaint about the food.
Angela [00:52:02] There's no sun.
Jenna [00:52:04] Okay.
Angela [00:52:05] They don't have access, I think, to animals, right?
Jenna [00:52:08] Okay, maybe. We don't know because we haven't seen Zion.
Angela [00:52:10] Zion, right.
Jenna [00:52:11] We don't know what's there.
Angela [00:52:12] Zion's in the middle of the earth where it's still warm, a little bit warm. So maybe they do have to recycle their clothes.
Jenna [00:52:20] From back in ye olden times.
Angela [00:52:22] Maybe so.
Jenna [00:52:23] But still. We can't darn a hole in a sweater?
Angela [00:52:27] Maybe we could sew.
Jenna [00:52:29] That's what I mean. We can't take our patches of fabric that we have left and turn it into something better? We've lost our ability to sew?
Angela [00:52:38] Mm-hmm. We do learn from Morpheus that this real world, they're sort of in the desert of what's left. It's very drab, it's dark, it's dreary. They only have bits and pieces of information. But from what they can tell, it looks like they gave birth to AI. Neo's like, "AI, you mean artificial intelligence?" Lady, this movie came out 26 years ago.
Jenna [00:53:00] Lady, I wrote, "Holy shit balls, this AI storyline is even more frightening." When I listen to this speech,
Angela [00:53:06] Because here we are, and it's just the topic of everything. Like, AI is everywhere now.
Jenna [00:53:11] Yes, Morpheus explains that we created AI, and then AI got so smart that it took over. There was a big battle between humans and machines.
Angela [00:53:21] And at the time, humans thought the AI was dependent on solar power, so they scorched the sun.
Jenna [00:53:29] Basically.
Angela [00:53:30] Basically, but as it turns out... "Fate," he says, "is not without a sense of irony" because they figured out how to have energy by using humans like batteries.
Jenna [00:53:40] Yeah, human beings are the batteries that now keep the machines alive. I thought this was ironic because our AI actually needs to be cooled down, right?
Angela [00:53:51] With a lot of water.
Jenna [00:53:53] So, like, how do we power it? I don't know. I just know we have to cool it down all the time.
Angela [00:53:58] We have to cool it down and in the process our planet's warming up.
Jenna [00:54:01] Yeah, and we're wasting our water on it. There's a lot we don't know.
Angela [00:54:04] A lot we don't know. I don't need my phone to summarize my text messages. Is that AI? Stop it.
Jenna [00:54:10] Yeah, every time I go to write a word document now, it begins with a prompt. It's asking me if I want AI to help me, but lady, I just saw this thing. I'm gonna read it, since we're on the subject, because I screen grabbed it because it haunted me so. It's about AI. Okay, they did a study of people who were using Chat GPT. They found that 83.3% of people using Chat GPT couldn't remember what they wrote minutes after they finished writing it.
Angela [00:54:44] Of course not.
Jenna [00:54:46] Also, when researchers asked Chat GPT users to write without any AI help, they did worse than people who had never used AI before. So in this control group, the people who use Chat GPT longer, it created a type of dependency and cognitive atrophy.
Angela [00:55:07] Yeah, what does that look like for the long term of your brain? Your brain is literally like, "Oh, you don't need me? I'm gonna peace out."
Jenna [00:55:14] Yeah, basically. Well, anyway, in this world, AI has taken humans captive and are using us as batteries. This is how bad it can get.
Angela [00:55:22] Neo doesn't want to believe it. He's like, "It's not possible." Morpheus is like, "Look, I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would the truth." And then he sort of apologizes to Neo. He's like, "We never free a mind once it's reached a certain age. It's dangerous. The mind has trouble letting go. But I had to do it. I had to because you are the one."
Jenna [00:55:44] Yeah.
Angela [00:55:44] And we find out that there has been other "ones." There was a man born inside the Matrix and he could change and remake the Matrix however he wanted, and that man died.
Jenna [00:55:56] Because it was prophesied when that man died, that he would return.
Angela [00:56:00] And Morpheus has spent his whole life looking for Neo.
Jenna [00:56:05] Yeah, because it is prophesied that Neo would bring on the destruction of the matrix.
Angela [00:56:12] So that's a lot for him to absorb and he goes to bed. The next day, we wake up, Tank's in his room. I love Tank. I love tank.
Jenna [00:56:21] Love. I agree.
Angela [00:56:21] He just lights up the screen. Oh, Marcus Chong plays Tank. He just owns the scene. He's so excited to help Neo train. He's gonna be his operator. We learned that Tank and his brother Dozer, they're 100% homegrown.
Jenna [00:56:33] Yeah, they don't have any like little spigots on them. They have no spigot. They've never been in a pod. They are children of Zion. I have a question. Do we ever see Zion in any of the sequels?
Angela [00:56:44] Yes, we do.
Jenna [00:56:45] I can't remember.
Angela [00:56:45] We do and people are happy and dancing and they get it on.
Jenna [00:56:50] Are there animals there?
Angela [00:56:51] I don't remember animals.
Jenna [00:56:52] How are they dressed in Zion? Are their clothes better?
Angela [00:56:54] It's all shades of beige. Some not wearing a lot. There is sort of a rave at Zion? A dance? It is like...
Jenna [00:57:02] What movie is this?
Angela [00:57:03] Things are bumping. I have no doubt that Tank and Dozer are homegrown because I think people in Zion are happy.
Jenna [00:57:11] Okay.
Angela [00:57:11] They get it on, is all I'm going to say.
Jenna [00:57:13] Well now Neo's training is gonna begin and this is the awesome part of this movie. Where they can just upload knowledge right into his head.
Angela [00:57:21] He downloads stuff for 10 hours straight. That's a long time. There are many famous lines in this training scene. Number one, "I know Kung Fu."
Jenna [00:57:31] Yes.
Angela [00:57:31] Next one, oh, this one's so good. When they're in the simulation, him and Morpheus, fighting in the dojo and he's kind of getting winded. Morpheus goes, "Do you think that is air you're breathing?" Oh, I thought that was so good.
Jenna [00:57:45] Yeah.
Angela [00:57:47] And then, of course, "Don't think you are, know you are. You have to let it all go. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind."
Jenna [00:57:55] This sequence, between Morpheus and Neo, is so freaking cool.
Angela [00:58:01] It's really cool.
Jenna [00:58:02] I have to ask you, if you could have stuff just, like, uploaded into your brain...
Angela [00:58:06] I had that in my thing to ask you!
Jenna [00:58:08] Do you have an answer?
Angela [00:58:10] I was going to ask you, when Trinity learns to fly the helicopter. Because when that happened, my daughter turned to me and goes, "Oh, now that is cool. Just like that, you can fly a helicopter." I think there'd be so many things, but one of the things I would love is being able to speak any language anywhere, instantaneously.
Jenna [00:58:31] That was my first thought. It was either language or musical instruments.
Angela [00:58:36] Oh yeah, that's interesting. We both had language. Sam, do you have anything you would want to upload immediately?
Sam [00:58:42] Probably just learning other languages.
Angela [00:58:44] Oh, that's what we said.
Sam [00:58:45] Yeah, that's it.
Jenna [00:58:46] Cassi?
Cassi [00:58:47] I mean, I feel like that's a great superpower.
Angela [00:58:50] Oh, I like this for us, you guys. We would all be able to talk.
Sam [00:58:53] We could all travel.
Angela [00:58:54] Yes. Well, word gets out pretty quick, on the ship, that Morpheus and Neo are in this simulation fighting. They all want to come watch. They can't believe how fast Neo's brain waves and stuff are moving. And Morpheus is like, "OK, it's time for the jump."
Jenna [00:59:11] Yeah, this is the simulation where Neo is going to have to jump from one building to another building.
Angela [00:59:18] Seems very quick in his training, that they've already gone to the jump.
Jenna [00:59:21] And they're all like, "No one ever makes the jump on the first time. No one makes it."
Angela [00:59:26] Yeah, and Neo does not make it.
Jenna [00:59:28] He doesn't.
Angela [00:59:29] And in fact, when they come back to the real world, he has a little bit of blood on his lip and he's confused by that. He's like, "I thought you said the simulation isn't real." And Morpheus says, "Your mind makes it real." So if you die in the matrix, you die and real life because the body cannot live without the mind, unless you see through the matrix.
Jenna [00:59:51] Well, don't give away the end. Pretend like you didn't hear that, everybody. Alright, so Trinity is gonna bring dinner to a sleeping Neo. As she's exiting the room, Cypher is waiting outside.
Angela [01:00:04] You mean creepy Cypher?
Jenna [01:00:05] Yeah, so creepy. He's like, "You never brought me dinner."
Angela [01:00:09] [makes cow adjacent noise to indicate that Cypher sucks]
Jenna [01:00:12] And then, you know...
Angela [01:00:14] Cypher is like, "Why isn't he taking him to meet the Oracle?" Alright, Cypher, me thinks thou does protest too much. Why do you want him back out in the world so quick?
Jenna [01:00:21] Oh yeah, I know. Exactly. Well listen, the training isn't done yet. They're not ready to go back into the Matrix and meet the Oracle because Neo has more to learn. He has to learn that anybody can be an agent.
Angela [01:00:33] Yeah, they're all connected. So many people have been in The Matrix for so long, either they're not ready to know the truth or they don't want to know truth, and then they fight against it. That means they fight you. This is proven to Neo because there's a ll of these dudes walking around. Everyone's wearing drab clothes in the simulation, and then this gorgeous gal in a red dress walks by. He turns his head and boom, like that, she's an agent.
Jenna [01:00:57] Yeah, with a gun in his face, Morpheus is like, "Freeze!" And everybody freezes except for the two of them.
Angela [01:01:03] But Tank is like, "Guys, we got to get you out. We're in trouble." A squiddy is coming. In the real world, they got to get them out of the simulation because in the real word, there's this killing machine. It's a sentinel and it's in hot pursuit of their ship and they have to hide from it. They're in the sewer system of the old cities.
Jenna [01:01:18] Yeah, and they have this one defense against the squiddies, which is an electromagnetic pulse, because they will disable all electric systems in the blast radius of this thing. But you don't want to use it.
Angela [01:01:33] It's last case scenario. It's the red switch. You don't wanna do it.
Jenna [01:01:38] You don't. Well, it's nighttime on the ship, and Neo is going to enter the room where Cypher is coding. They're having a little, I guess, chit chat. Cypher's like, "Oh, why didn't we take the blue pill?"
Angela [01:01:55] He's drinking some homegrown booze and he you can just tell he's not happy. He wants out.
Jenna [01:02:01] Yeah, now we're gonna cut to Cypher, sitting at a very nice dining table with some steak.
Angela [01:02:09] It's a steakhouse, it's clearly a flashback to what he was up to.
Jenna [01:02:13] Yeah, guess what he's up to? He's a mole, he's an inside man. He's a double agent.
Angela [01:02:19] He's the rat, yeah.
Jenna [01:02:20] He has made a deal to deliver Morpheus. The agents want him to give the location of Zion so they can destroy it.
Angela [01:02:29] The codes, yeah.
Jenna [01:02:30] And he's like, "I don't have that, but I'll give you Morpheus. Morpheus has it." So he's agreed to deliver Morpheus to these guys. And then in exchange, they're going to reinsert him into the matrix.
Angela [01:02:44] How? He's not thinking this through.
Jenna [01:02:46] Well, he said, "I don't want to remember anything. And I want to be someone important, someone rich. Like an actor." But he's eating this steak.
Angela [01:02:55] I'm just curious how they re-insert him in a pod. How do they plug him back in? All the holes in his arms, how do they do all that again?
Jenna [01:03:02] I mean, I don't know.
Angela [01:03:03] Cypher, I don't think it's possible and I think you're an idiot.
Jenna [01:03:07] Yeah, do you think they're just gonna kill him after they get the information that they want?
Angela [01:03:12] 100 percent.
Jenna [01:03:12] Okay. You're right.
Angela [01:03:13] Now we go from this beautiful steak, to this disgusting ship slop. It's, like, white gooey gummy. It looks like a bunch of glue and some shredded paper and water, maybe.
Jenna [01:03:24] I ask again, why? Why is the food so crappy? I mean, okay, let's say they can't make better food. We know they can make pills. Can they not just get the nutrients they need?
Angela [01:03:36] And where do they get the dye? Also, why is everything beige? They have dye for the pills. Can't you have a blue blouse?
Jenna [01:03:43] So you're back on the clothes.
Angela [01:03:45] Sorry.
Jenna [01:03:45] I'm like, "Why does the food look like vomit?"
Angela [01:03:47] I don't know. Well, Morpheus is going to say that it's time to bring Neo to meet the Oracle. Here's the thing I was surprised about.
Jenna [01:03:55] What?
Angela [01:03:55] The entire crew goes, except for Tank and Dozer. Everyone.
Jenna [01:04:02] I think as back up. I mean, that shot of all of them in that room.
Angela [01:04:05] It's cool. It's very cool.
Jenna [01:04:07] It is such a beautiful tableau.
Angela [01:04:09] It really is. And they're all in their cool, slick outfits. Their kick-ass outfits. As everyone leaves the hotel building that they've arrived in, Cypher tosses his cell phone, into a trash can, and he has made an outgoing call. So it's active.
Jenna [01:04:29] Yeah, I guess that's how they're gonna trace them. Morpheus and Neo, they're there. They're standing at the door where the oracle lives.
Angela [01:04:37] I loved everything about the scene. I loved her so much.
Jenna [01:04:40] Well, of course.
Angela [01:04:40] We'll get to it.
Jenna [01:04:43] So Morpheus says, "Neo, you have to enter the door."
Angela [01:04:46] "I can take you to the door, but I can't walk you through it."
Jenna [01:04:49] Yes, and a woman answers the door. She takes him to a waiting room of other potential the ones. There's a lot of children with very special powers.
Angela [01:05:03] Which makes sense because Morpheus has told us they usually don't take a mind so late in life.
Jenna [01:05:12] Well, I think that children's minds are more open. So Neo's gonna have a conversation with one of these kids. This kid has a spoon and he's bending it with his mind.
Angela [01:05:20] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [01:05:21] And he's going to offer the spoon to Neo and say, "Why don't you bend it?" I think we should hear it.
audio clip from The Matrix - child [01:05:27] Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [01:05:37] What truth?
audio clip from The Matrix - child [01:05:39] There is no spoon.
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [01:05:43] There is no spoon?
audio clip from The Matrix - child [01:05:45] Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
Angela [01:05:55] This is so profound. The truth is there is no spoon. Just like you're not breathing this air, none of this exists.
Jenna [01:06:03] Alright, Neo's gonna meet the oracle, Gloria Foster. Oh my god.
Angela [01:06:07] Shout out to Gloria Foster, she plays the oracle in this Matrix and she is amazing.
Jenna [01:06:12] Amazing.
Angela [01:06:13] I have my favorite line from her.
Jenna [01:06:16] Oh, what is it?
Angela [01:06:18] "You're cuter than I thought. I can see why she likes you." Neo says, "who?" And then she says, "Not too bright though."
Jenna [01:06:25] [laughing] I know, I love that. So she's making some cookies when he walks in. It's so homey and grandma-like. She says, "I know why you're here. You want to know if you're the one." And then she says, "You know, being the one is kind of like being in love. No one can tell you. You just know it." But lady, I grabbed an audio clip because I want to hear Gloria Foster say it. OK.
audio clip from The Matrix - The Oracle [01:06:54] I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Being the one is just like being in love. No one can tell you you're in love, you just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones.
Jenna [01:07:10] Balls to bones.
Angela [01:07:12] She goes through the motions of looking at his hands and his face, like, none of this stuff she needs to do, right? She says, "Look, you've got the gift, but you're not the one. Maybe in your next life." But she does say that Morpheus is going to sacrifice his own life to save Neo's because Morpheus so fully believes that Neo is the one, and Neo will have to choose between his life and Morpheus's life.
Jenna [01:07:37] Yes, but one of them will die.
Angela [01:07:39] And she said, "Look, you've got a good heart, and I hate giving bad news to good people. But just eat your cookie, and as soon as you get outside, you're gonna feel right as rain."
Jenna [01:07:49] Every time I watch this movie, those cookies look so good to me. They look like an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.
Angela [01:07:56] Is that why you brought cookies today?
Jenna [01:07:57] Oh my god, I brought cookies!
Angela [01:08:00] I know! You normally don't bring cookies.
Jenna [01:08:02] I made cookies!
Angela [01:08:04] Wow, was that subconscious?
Jenna [01:08:06] It must have been, because the cookies looked so good in the movie when I watched it
Angela [01:08:12] We also did not plan this or discuss this, but we both wore black.
Jenna [01:08:17] [laughing] It's so funny. Oh my goodness.
Angela [01:08:20] Neo walks out into the hallway, Morpheus is there, and Neo starts to speak and Morpheus doesn't want Neo to tell him. He's like, "Whatever the Oracle told you is for you alone."
Jenna [01:08:30] Yeah. Well, they're all getting ready to go back to the phone. They're going to get their phone call. They're gonna get out of the building.
Angela [01:08:37] They're walking up this stairwell. It's a really cool looking stairwell in one of those busted buildings they go into. And Neo sees a black cat cross and then stutter and cross again. And he goes, "Oh, deja vu," and everyone stops.
Jenna [01:08:51] Yeah, everyone's like... [makes freezing/seizing/gasping noise]
Angela [01:08:52] Deja vu. What it normally signifies is a glitch in the matrix. Usually they have changed something. This is when they realize they're in a trap.
Jenna [01:09:01] Yes, they have cut off all of the access to the building. When they open up the curtains, there's no window. It's just a brick wall.
Angela [01:09:08] Yeah, they've changed the code of the room.
Jenna [01:09:11] And they can't get phone calls. They can't out.
Angela [01:09:13] By the way to this day if me or any of my friends have deja vu, one of us says, "It's a glitch in the matrix."
Jenna [01:09:19] Oh, really?
Angela [01:09:21] My old group, like, we hang out sometimes, my improv crowd. "Glitch in the Matrix." Do you say that?
Jenna [01:09:27] I don't even think I say "deja vu" very well. A big action sequence is coming up.
Angela [01:09:34] Oh, this scene is so hard for me to watch, because Morpheus' team is just getting surrounded. They go and they hide. Tank helps them find this hole inside the building. They're in the walls where the plumbing is, right? And they're scooching down quietly, and the agents are looking for them, and then Cypher coughs in the wall. Did he mean to do it, or did he just really have a lot of drywall all over him?
Jenna [01:09:59] I mean, to be fair, I wonder the same thing. He does get a face full of dust.
Angela [01:10:05] In his face. He does.
Jenna [01:10:07] But come on, Cypher.
Angela [01:10:08] Well, the agents now know where they are and they just start firing into the wall and Morpheus is determined to protect his team. So he throws himself through this hole in the wall, on top of one of the agents, and begins to fight him. In the midst of all this chaos, Cypher has gotten out and called Tank and said, "I need to come in." And as soon as he gets in there, he then kills Dozer and fires at Tank. Now Cypher in the real world is in control, and can just pull people's plugs and they'll die.
Jenna [01:10:41] Exactly.
Angela [01:10:42] And he walks around, he's talking to Trinity, and he's like, "Say goodbye to Apoc" and then he says, "Do you have anything you wanna say to Switch?" And this part just breaks me every time I watch it. Trinity looks at Switch and she says, "Not like this," as she's holding APOC in her arms. Then Creepy Cypher is sniffing Trinity, in the real world.
Jenna [01:11:06] So, really gross.
Angela [01:11:07] So gross. He's like, "I used to be in love with you," and he's just being creepy. Then he jumps on top of Morpheus. Cypher's like, "Listen, if Neo is the one, only a miracle would stop me from pulling Morpheus' plug." The miracle happens.
Jenna [01:11:21] It sure does.
Angela [01:11:23] It's tank.
Jenna [01:11:23] He pops up and he's got that electro gun and he zaps Cypher. Then he brings everybody back. He doesn't bring Morpheus back, though.
Angela [01:11:36] No.
Jenna [01:11:36] He brings back Trinity and Neo.
Angela [01:11:39] They're all that's left.
Jenna [01:11:40] I know.
Angela [01:11:41] Morpheus is alive, but now the agents have him. This is not gonna be good. You know they're gonna try to get those codes out of him and it's bad.
Jenna [01:11:50] Morpheus, he's been taken hostage.
Angela [01:11:54] Yeah, and they kind of have them hooked up to some stuff. Looks like they're trying to literally open up his mind, so they can get these codes to Zion.
Jenna [01:12:03] Yeah, he's being interrogated by Agent Smith. This is when Agent Smith says this very interesting thing, because I had been wondering this actually. And he says, "Have you ever wondered why the Matrix, this totally fake world, it's just a construct, have you wondered why it has suffering and misery in it?" And I'd been thinking the same thing. I had be thinking like, "If this whole thing is just an elaborate video game, why does it include wars and people being hungry and people be murdered?" Like, why is that in this program? I grabbed an audio clip because I'm gonna let Agent Smith tell you why.
audio clip from The Matrix - Agent Smith [01:12:47] Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world, the dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization.
Angela [01:13:39] People couldn't accept it.
Jenna [01:13:41] Well, don't the Buddhists say life is suffering? Isn't that a Buddhist thing? Sam?
Sam [01:13:47] Existence is suffering. Yeah. Core tenet of Buddhism.
Jenna [01:13:53] Existence is suffering. Thank you.
Angela [01:13:53] Back in the real world, Tank is like, "Look if they have Morpheus, Zion is now at risk. Because every captain of our ships has the mainframe codes to get into Zion and we can't let them get that." Tank is like, "Basically we should say our goodbyes to Morpheus and we should pull the plug."
Jenna [01:14:11] That's the only answer, is that they have to kill Morpheus from the ship.
Angela [01:14:14] To save Zion and, and Neo's like, "No." This is when Neo really starts to believe in something. He says, "Look, I can't explain it, but I understand now why Morpheus was willing to die for his beliefs. Because now I believe something and that is that I can bring Morpheus back. I can explain it. I just know that I bring him back."
Jenna [01:14:38] Chills.
Angela [01:14:39] And Trinity's like, "Well, I'm coming with you." And this is what I call "Another Trinity Badass Moment:"
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [01:14:45] What are you doing?
audio clip from The Matrix - Trinity [01:14:46] I'm going with you.
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [01:14:48] No, you're not.
audio clip from The Matrix - Trinity [01:14:51] No? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe if you are really serious about saving him, you are going to need my help. And since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it, I believe you can go to hell. Because you aren't going anywhere else. Tank, load us up.
Jenna [01:15:13] Well, OK, Trinity!
Angela [01:15:15] I know. Meanwhile, Agent Smith, he has just had it. He sends the other two agents out. He takes out his earpiece. Now he's just like, "Look, Morpheus, you guys are like a virus. And I can't get rid of you. But if I can, then I can get out of this place." He's sick of their smell. He's stick of everything about them. And he's kind of going on and on.
Jenna [01:15:37] Yeah, he's really trying to get into Morpheus's head. He's really trying to break him.
Angela [01:15:44] Mm-hmm. I have just one bullshit card.
Jenna [01:15:47] What is it?
Angela [01:15:48] And it wasn't even about their clothes, okay? I found a way to wrap my head around their beige clothes that have a bunch of tears in them and their food. Here's my one bullshit card. You know I love this movie. Okay, the agents are these sophisticated bots, right, within the simulation?
Jenna [01:16:09] Yeah, they are the machine.
Angela [01:16:10] They can become other beings within the Matrix. But they need a little earpiece to be tapped in? Aren't they already, just by the nature, tapped in?
Jenna [01:16:24] I have a bullshit card that's similar, for later. I do.
Angela [01:16:27] Okay, that's my only one is the earpiece thingy.
Jenna [01:16:30] Okay, here's my bullshit card: If the machines control the matrix, why don't they control all the vehicles in the matrix? Like, when someone's driving a car, why can't they just make the car stop? Or why can they just make the helicopter fall out of the sky? Why don't they have control of that? Because they can put agents into human simulations, but an agent can't become a car and then suddenly drive it wherever they want it to be? They can only insert themselves into... Do you know what I'm saying?
Angela [01:17:01] Yeah.
Jenna [01:17:02] We don't know the answer to these questions.
Angela [01:17:03] We don't know the answer to these questions, but we can tell you a big can of whoop ass is about to happen. It's this famous lobby scene.
Jenna [01:17:11] Oh, the lobby scene!
Angela [01:17:12] The lobby scene, which is also a nod to Ghost in the Shell. I mean, literally down to the columns and them hiding behind it and all of the explosives.
Jenna [01:17:20] And the cartwheels up the wall and everything. Lady, do you know that there's a blooper reel for The Matrix and this scene is in it?
Angela [01:17:29] No way.
Jenna [01:17:30] Okay, so you know this moment when Neo and Trinity, they walk into the lobby and they both whip out their guns and then they look at each other and then they look forward and then they start their duo kick ass? Okay, I guess this moment, when they whip up their guns and then they turn and they whip their heads to each other, that kept making Keanu break.
Angela [01:17:50] No way.
Jenna [01:17:51] It's on the blooper reel of him. Just, like, every time they looked at each other he lost it.
Angela [01:17:57] That is so random.
Jenna [01:17:58] Isn't that so random?
Angela [01:18:00] Yeah. And adorable. I mean, I don't know why... It's just adorable.
Jenna [01:18:06] I had another thought here, which was that I'm noticing their outfits. Once again, Trinity is in all leather. I don't know why it took me this long to wonder, but I was like, "Is leather the outfit you want when you're gonna kick ass?" I think maybe because she's now cartwheeling off the wall. Is it... Does it bend?
Angela [01:18:27] Well, here's the thing: I feel like it's a combo of leather and vinyl, both of which don't have a lot of give.
Jenna [01:18:32] I know. Well, according to costume designer Kim Barrett, guess what? It wasn't even made out of leather, which now I'm like, "how did Carrie-Anne Moss?" Cause leather does give. How did Carrie-Anne Moss do these stunts? Her costume was made out of cheap PVC, because they had such a tight budget. Then Neo's coat was a wool blend that only costs $3 a yard. Can you believe how amazing that costume designer made that **** look?
Angela [01:19:03] I mean, amazing.
Jenna [01:19:04] I mean, I can't believe it. She had no budget and look what she made them look like. We all want that as our Halloween costume.
Angela [01:19:10] We do, even though I'm not sure how you go pee in it, which is what I always ask myself before I get a Halloween costume.
Jenna [01:19:17] That's the question you ask yourself. How am I going to pee in this?
Angela [01:19:19] How am I going to pee?
Jenna [01:19:20] It's a smart question.
Angela [01:19:21] That's a good question. Alright, we have this moment now. They've taken out the lobby. They get in the elevator. They climb up on top of the elevator, they're within the elevator shaft.
Jenna [01:19:33] Is that the hugging thing? Where they ride up this...
Angela [01:19:36] He puts his arm around her and right before he shoots the cable to make them go up in the air, he goes, "There is no spoon."
Jenna [01:19:44] Yeah.
Angela [01:19:44] I loved that callback. I also loved the snuggle in the elevator shaft
Jenna [01:19:49] This is Keanu's second movie where this plummeting elevator is a plot line. Hello, Speed.
Angela [01:19:56] Elevators and raves: the Keanu Reeves biography.
Jenna [01:20:07] [laughing] Cut to Agent Smith, just continuing -
Angela [01:20:10] To drone on.
Jenna [01:20:12] I wrote, "Did Laurence Fishburne have a headache after shooting these interrogation scenes?" He's rolling his eyes up inside his head, he's shaking and pulsing. He's tensing so much.
Angela [01:20:22] So much.
Jenna [01:20:23] God.
Angela [01:20:24] I mean, brilliant acting.
Jenna [01:20:26] Yeah.
Angela [01:20:27] The other two agents come and they're like, "Hey, what's up? You haven't heard? They're here." And he's like, "Uh-huh. OK, find them, destroy them. It's go time." Neo and Trinity, though, they're up on the roof. They're kicking some ass. This is the famous scene where the bullets kind of are suspended. And then he's able to do this total bend move.
Jenna [01:20:48] I have an interesting fact.
Angela [01:20:50] Oh yeah, let's hear it.
Jenna [01:20:51] Only 20% of this movie is visual effects. Does that surprise you?
Angela [01:20:55] It does.
Jenna [01:20:56] Yeah. A lot of practical, a lot of hand-to-hand combat, but then famous slow-motion bullet scene.
Angela [01:21:02] I did read that this "bullet time" has its roots in 19th century photography and was developed further in 2D animation, but it really came to the limelight in The Matrix.
Jenna [01:21:13] It's pretty freaking cool.
Angela [01:21:14] Pretty freaking cool. Well, this is that famous moment when Neo says to Trinity, "Do you know how to fly a helicopter?" And she's like, "Not yet." So cool.
Jenna [01:21:24] And then Tank just uploads 'helicopter pilot' into her head and she's good to go. The helicopters now gonna come up and it's gonna stop on the floor where Morpheus is being interrogated and they have got...
Angela [01:21:37] It's like a gatling gun.
Jenna [01:21:39] It's one of those circular machine guns, spraying bullets.
Angela [01:21:44] How they don't hit Morpheus... Is there a Reddit thread about this?
Jenna [01:21:48] I don't know. I wrote, "how is he not hitting Morpheus? How?"
Angela [01:21:52] This is what everyone in my house said. But he doesn't. And then Morpheus breaks free and runs towards the helicopter. Then Neo's like, "He's not going to make it," and he jumps out. I'm glad he was fastened in. He jumps out, he grabs Morpheus midair. Trinity's flying off, but one of the agents has shot the fuel because this helicopter within the simulation has fuel.
Jenna [01:22:16] [laughing softly] Yep. Go on.
Angela [01:22:19] She's trying to figure out what to do, because they're not gonna make it. She grabs the other side of this cable thing, that Neo has, and she jumps out of the helicopter as it hits this building. Then (this is very cool) there's a ripple in the matrix.
Jenna [01:22:33] Mm-hmm.
Angela [01:22:34] When the helicopter hits the building.
Jenna [01:22:36] Mm-hmm.
Angela [01:22:36] But Neo pulls her up. He's got her, lady. He's the one. Morpheus is literally back there, like, biting his tongue, like, "I knew it!"
Jenna [01:22:44] Alright, they've got to get out of the Matrix. They've got Morpheus, they gotta get him out. So they get to this subway station. There's a pay phone there.
Angela [01:22:51] Morpheus goes first.
Jenna [01:22:53] Yes, you need a hard line, I guess. You can't get out through a cell phone.
Angela [01:22:57] Look at what I have in all big caps in red. Because then the phone rings again and it's ringing and ringing and Trinity's like, 'Well, I wanna tell you something but I'm afraid of the repercussions and it something that Oracle told me." And I'm like, "Trinity, tell him later! Read the room. Now is not the time!"
Jenna [01:23:15] Tell him in the real world, you're about to- Get out! You're gonna see him in 45 seconds!
Angela [01:23:20] Yes, because there's a homeless guy in the corner that has turned into Agent Smith!
Jenna [01:23:24] And Agent Smith, just as Trinity is answering the phone and gets back into the real world, destroys the phone!
Angela [01:23:32] Now Neo is stuck in this subway with Agent Smith. And you know what? He doesn't run. He's starting to believe. I have to share this thing. Remember when I said there was a thing that happened in the theater when I saw this?
Jenna [01:23:45] Yeah. What happened?
Angela [01:23:47] So Neo and Agent Smith are starting to have this epic hand-to-hand battle, right? But Neo's starting to move faster and faster and then all of a sudden, once he kicks the agent really far, he turns to him. He does this hand movement and then he extends his one hand and he does that like "come here" move. One of the guys in our group of improv and sketch comedians that we all went to, Jordan Black was his name. He's a very, very funny sketch comedy comedian. We knew him from the - You could have heard a pin drop in this completely sold out, huge Mann's Chinese theater at this moment.
Jenna [01:24:23] Okay.
Angela [01:24:24] Right as Neo does the little hand movement, Jordan yells into the quietness, "Bring it!" And the place went nuts. Everyone started yelling and cheering. It was crazy. It was such an epic moment. We still talk about it. I texted Warren, cause we were in this group that went together and I go, "Do you remember?" He goes, "When Jordan yelled, 'Bring it?' In the subway fight scene?" I'm like, "Yes!"
Jenna [01:24:50] [laughing] Oh my goodness.
Angela [01:24:51] Oh my gosh. When I tell you that place went nuts throughout all of these next few sequences, it was so electric.
Jenna [01:24:57] Well, this battle is insane. I wrote, "Did Hugo Weaving ever think he was going to be cast in a role that required an epic hand-to-hand battle scene?" I mean, as the type of actor that he is? The two of them are so good.
Angela [01:25:17] So good, this subway fight sort of ends where they end up down on the tracks, Agent Smith has Neo. When I watched this with my kids I couldn't... You know when a line comes to you and you forgot that you even knew it?
Jenna [01:25:30] Yeah.
Angela [01:25:30] Before Agent Smith says this I said, "Do you hear that? Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability," and my kids went what? Then he said it and I was like, "I can't believe I remembered that." But Neo manages to get enough air to speak and he says, "My name is Neo." Then he overcomes and hops out of the way and we think, "Okay."
Jenna [01:25:53] Agent Smith gets hit by the train.
Angela [01:25:55] Yeah, we're like, "Okay, Neo's good. He's gonna get out now."
Jenna [01:25:59] No. The train arrives in the station and Agent Smith just walks out of the doors.
Angela [01:26:04] Now the chase is on again. But in the meantime, in the real world, they have sent the Sentinels out looking for them and they have found them. And now the Sentinels are breaching the ship. They have these little laser beams and they're opening up the hull of the ship,
Jenna [01:26:19] and they can't use the electromagnetic pulsar thing because that'll somehow, I guess, dismantle their ability to bring Neo home.
Angela [01:26:27] Sure, they'll lose all of their signal probably. I don't know. That's my guess.
Jenna [01:26:31] So during all of this, Neo is trying to run to the phone so he can get out. They're trying to keep the squiddy things from destroying the whole ship. And Neo is gonna get to the door where the phone is. You think like, "Oh my God, he's gonna make it, he's going to make it!" And he opens the door and Agent Smith is there and he shoots him! Multiple times!
Angela [01:26:55] We're like, "Oh no."
Jenna [01:26:56] And he dies!
Angela [01:26:57] He lays on the ground. They check his pulse he says, "It's done," and in the real world trinity leans down and whispers to him and says, "I'm not afraid anymore. The Oracle told me that i would fall in love and that man that man that I loved would be the one. So you see you can't be dead. You can't be, because I love you." And she kisses him and his heart restarts in the matrix! And then Trinity's like, "Get up," and he gets up and let me tell you, game changer, it is on.
Jenna [01:27:31] Oh my gosh, the agents can't believe it. They've never seen anything like this. They shoot a whole bunch of bullets at him, but Neo just puts his hand up and they all freeze in front of him.
Angela [01:27:43] He puts his hand up and he says, "No."
Jenna [01:27:48] I wish when I just had too much shit coming at me I could just put my hand up and be like, "No," and it would all just freeze in front of me
Angela [01:27:57] Maybe we should start doing that. Even if it doesn't freeze, we should just put our hand up and say, "no." Well, thank you, Neo. Because now when people ask us to volunteer too many times at school, I'm going to hold up my hand and I'm gonna say no.
Jenna [01:28:11] But it's different, it's more wise and calm.
Angela [01:28:12] It's peaceful. Well, all the bullets have frozen in this gelatinous shield, and he picks one up, and they all fall to the ground. Then he looks at them, and then Agent Smith comes up to him (and this is such a badass moment) and Neo fights him in hand-to-hand combat with one hand behind his back, not even looking at him.
Jenna [01:28:35] I know, it was so fun.
Angela [01:28:36] It's so amazing.
Jenna [01:28:38] He's so fast.
Angela [01:28:39] He kicks him down the hallway. Then this next move, everyone in the theater lost it. It's that slow leg lift/turn. We all went home and tried to do it. It's so hard to do.
Jenna [01:28:51] Of course it's hard to do!
Angela [01:28:54] He holds it. Like, Keanu must have been in such kick-ass shape. I mean, we know he was. [Angela tries to do the leg thing]
Jenna [01:28:59] That looks just like it, that looks just like it, lady.
Angela [01:29:04] As I fell. It's really hard to do. There's a TikTok trend. Everyone try to do the leg move. I don't know TikTok trends, clearly.
Jenna [01:29:13] I don't think you just declare them, but maybe we could.
Angela [01:29:17] Maybe we'll try one.
Jenna [01:29:19] Well now, in order to destroy the Matrix, Neo is going to dive into Agent Smith,
Angela [01:29:30] I don't think he's trying to destroy the Matrix here.
Jenna [01:29:32] To destroy him from within, but that's how he breaks Agent Smith
Angela [01:29:36] I know, but I don't think he's trying to destroy all of the matrix. I just think all of a sudden he's like, "Oh my gosh, I so own you."
Jenna [01:29:44] Yeah.
Angela [01:29:44] What I love is that after Neo kind of just breaks him apart and comes out of him, the other two agents are like, "Buh-bye."
Jenna [01:29:51] Yeah, they just leave.
Angela [01:29:53] And we've never seen that before. We've never see agents run away.
Jenna [01:29:56] Well, they're gonna get Neo back on the ship.
Angela [01:29:59] Because it's coming apart! Trinity's like, "Get here." They do that electromagnetic pulse thing.
Jenna [01:30:06] And Neo and Trinity, they're gonna have a moment. She's so glad he's back. And then...
Angela [01:30:12] They have a little smoochy.
Jenna [01:30:14] They do, and that's the end of the movie. We're gonna see that same green code coming down.
Angela [01:30:20] And then we hear this speech from Neo. I think we should hear it.
Jenna [01:30:23] Yeah.
audio clip from The Matrix - Neo [01:30:26] I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone and then I'm gonna show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm gong to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there, is a choice I leave to you.
Jenna [01:31:12] And then he flies away!
Angela [01:31:14] Right. The words say "system failure" across the coded screen. He skyrockets into the sky. And then how perfect is the music? It's "Wake Up" by Rage Against the Machine. What a perfect end. Just before we say goodbye to this, I do want you guys to know that I read (because this movie was such a success) that Keanu was in line to make a bunch of money on the sequels. He gave millions of that money to the crew: to the special effects, costume teams, stunt teams. He said, "Look, these guys made the movie. They made it come to life." He also got the stunt team, each, a custom-made Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Jenna [01:31:55] Wow.
Angela [01:31:56] I know!
Jenna [01:31:57] Oh my goodness.
Angela [01:31:59] I know! There you have it, you guys!
Jenna [01:32:04] That was The Matrix.
Angela [01:32:04] We want to give a little shout out to Sam, who wrote that little opening number we did.
Jenna [01:32:13] And sound designed it.
Angela [01:32:15] That was really fun. We'll see you next week.
Jenna [01:32:18] See you then.
audio cue [01:32:18] [Wake Up by Rage Against The Machine plays and crossfades into the Office Ladies outro]
audio cue [01:16:18] [outro music]
Jenna [01:16:18] Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
Angela [01:16:20] Office Ladies is a presentation of Audacy and is produced by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.
Jenna [01:16:25] Our executive producer is Cassi Jerkins. Our audio engineer is Sam Kieffer and our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico.
Angela [01:16:33] Audacy's executive producer is Leah Reis-Dennis.
Jenna [01:16:36] Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
Angela [01:16:39] Our theme song is "Rubber Tree" by Creed Bratton.