The Ultimate Matrix Collection (10 DVD SET!!!)

Since you’re too likely to have watched the movies I’ll skip the obvious and will TRY keep it as curt as my fingers let me.

   1 – The Matrix. The movie plus philosopher’s commentaries while they watch the movie and then critic’s commentaries while they watch the movie.

   2 – The Matrix Revisited. Before even reading the script Keanu was told to read 3 books. These guys focused on things like showing more green and grids while in the matrix and more blue and more natural/less styled look of everyone in the ‘real world’. Now remember the camera work where you see the shots like time’s frozen and the camera pans all round? It’s called Bullet Time. The 4 main actors had to go through 4 months gangsterous training in Kung Fu and choreography. Hah Keanu had some operation on his neck so his next was stiffer than normal, think of why his acting looks stiff is coz he’s a perfectionist, dude is so hard on himself, especially with his movements, even after the directors say they’re happy with the takes he’ll still wanna do more. Before shooting the had a auspicious Buddhist ceremony. That pig looks yum! Damn you know the crowded scene on the street… they cast a lot of twins and triplets… didn’t even realize that. Then you have those backgrounds that look real… now their Australia one is the biggest translit (spelling). When they wrapped it was 1.01 (Neo’s number). Then you’ve got 41 audio tracks, 3 hours worth of music which I cant seem to be able to locate in the movies themselves so I guess its  electronic/trance/techno/ambient/chill-out tracks inspired BY the movie. And much more. Note: This is just the first one lol.

   3 – The Matrix Reloaded. Movie plus same commentaries. Note: That rave in the cave scene what when I first actually realized that I get The Rush (Zion by Fluke). I mean the sound syncing, the choice of song, wardrobe, warm colours, lil bit of lovemaking. Ok I’m taking a break to get that rush.

   4 – The Matrix Reloaded Revisited. Remember production for this was kept so top secret sometimes even the actors were baffled (according to FHM). 23 scenes/back-story shot for the console game that plug into the action of The Matrix Reloaded. Building the Merovingian’s lair is too good (Merogingian’s share a bloodline with Christ… apparently). The statues, the halls, doors, murals, paintings… its gorgeous but not real e.g. the marble looking floor is really vinyl. A day in the life of Chen Hu/The Tiger (martial artist/stunt man/wire team/choreography). He’s trained in weapons alone for 10 years. Oh baby the car chases, they even got Knightrider on the highway. For the parking lot they got Cadillac’s from some Cadillac club in Wales. One of them was the only one on the road anywhere in the world. The other one was in a museum somewhere. There’s a vertigo shot which took one year plus! For effects on the twins they studied jellyfish. Anatomy of the amazing freeway truck crash. Creating and anatomy the Burly Brawl… you know what that is? The Neo and 100’s of Agent Smiths fight. Conversation with Master Wo Ping (martial arts choreographer/director). And much more.

   5 – The Matrix Revolutions. Movie plus documentaries.

   6 – The Matrix Revolutions Revisited. Remember production for this too was kept so top secret sometimes even the actors were baffled (according to FHM). Shows us the crew from props, animators, stuntmen, special fx to details of the 2nd unit to the Director of Photography (D.O.P.) all the way to the masters of light and shadow. They show how they got folks to run on the ceilings/walls/pillars and how their techniques evolved. Then you got the freak extras in the club. Creating and anatomy of the whole machine vs. war scene towards the end. Creating The Super Burly Brawl and anatomy of the super punch. Oh wow… the Revolutionary Composition bit is all about the music and sound effects. Check this out… for the Super Burly Brawl the Wachowski Bros suggested to the composer that his orchestra to sing in Sanskrit from the Upanishads. Don’t worry if you don’t know what they’re about coz I’ve recently acquired some knowledge on that. Big up Washowskis! Back to sound effects… special big up to them coz they didn’t get to see the proper movie still it came out so the sounds they had to record… oh yeah record coz the sound guy didn’t wanna use the same ones from his library so he got all these new ones for the sentinels, got a couple of martial artist beating the crap out of each other for 4 days and recorded that. Bust up cars for those scenes and all swung all kinds of stuff for the whoosh sounds used in punches. And much more.

   7 – The Animatrix. Simply put 9 short Japanese-anime/manga/Japanime films. Complexly put… manga comes into it, CG comes into it, they either fill up some before/after/between stories of the movie or just things concerning the Matrix. Some of the stuff is really disturbing. Believe this right… the animators said they thought they were watching anime just by watching the movies themselves in fact one of the anime dudes say that the Brothers knew more about Japanese-anime then some of the anime peeps themselves. 4 of the stories they wrote and the others they collaborated with the directors so the stories are theirs but the animation they wanted of the directors. That’s how wicked Wachowski’s hooked their movies up. Oh wow they have a history and culture of anime… from the best anime folks, how it evolved after the war, folks from 6 to 60 are into it, limited animation, smooth motion. Things like if the characters eyes are big then that’s a ‘good guy’, smaller ones are not. The beauty of it comes coz of the budget production coz that’s where anime procedures differ from normal cartoons. They kinda ‘cheat’ what they can for magical results. You also got the gestures and the non-stated, kinda like less talk means more. It has no rules when it comes to violence, sex and other taboos where the West put restrictions. Oh but the Godfather of manga did copy from the West to start it all is why you see the characters look more Caucasian. Then you got the making of the short films. The first one is too nice man the textures are lifelike and sexy. Well the girl is. The ‘recapitulation’ of historic and current events, references to our nature/behaviour, myths and legends and epics and folklore and tradition thrown in all the films. Mixing 2D anime with 3D CG was kinda controversial back then, its pretty much mainstream now. And what? And much more!

   8 – The Roots of the Matrix. Ok here you got the philosophy of the matrix. They’ve got philosophical analogies from Plato to Descartes to Socrates to Berkeley to Kant to Nietzsche to Baudrillard to Nozick to LaPlace to Hume to Schopenhauer and put it forward in a more digestible presentation. We all know each character is a metaphor or illusion in philosophy in math/science/physics/biology/IT and religion. See this is what I love about it… they mix science with spirituality. They throw ‘suggestions’ that make you ask yourself questions and they do it with a good dose of entertainment. Wow thought experiments, we normally do it ourselves as in ‘What if change the parameters of the world thus and so?’ Yo this goes deep. Mostly scholars/theorists/philosophers deconstructing the intellectual underpinnings of the trilogy. Make sense? They also get into cyberpunk, jazz mythology, Gnostic Christianity (in the first Matrix), Samsara in Buddhism. Ignorance is bliss and how we are so comfortable that we don’t wanna wake up (like Cypher). The Brothers slowly open your minds and the other two they go on rampage for your to come to your own conclusions about the riddles that don’t get solved. That rave scene in Reloaded one is apparently very Tantra. Upanishads are in there too, along with Advaita Vedanta (Hindu scriptures and philosophy in short). Matrix Reloaded is seen as The Old Testament reloaded i.e. The New Testament. My fav bit is where they say Reloaded is about love. Neo/The One forsakes all for Trinity. Ok Revolutions now, the lil Indian girl is meant to signify Sati (first wife of Shiva and stuff), lot of Taoism too. Examples of Taoism… Oracle in black and Architect in white (one unbalances the other balances respectively). So apart from the Oracles yin-yang earrings and her and Architect we see the Neo and Agent Smith yin-yang Revolutions is also meant to link with The Book of Revelations. Neo pilots the ship called Logos (meaning word), so he’s basically brining The Word to the people. Something about Jewish Cabala and Mysticism too. Wow that was all once section. The other bit is if the notion of the real Matrix is plausible. An investigation of the technologies that inspire the metaphor of the Matrix Trilogy. Jesus man… have you guys ever had a chat in those rooms where you have avatars and backgrounds and all that? The way these guys put it, that it will be the avenue folks take to get to that virtual space in the Matrix. Nanobot seem to be another factor that will be in our bodies to help us switch off our senses to be able to get into the virtual space. I don’t want that! Ok so some bits are advantageous like the kid that learnt how to fly a plane with this simulator game but damn, I’m trying to be able to get away from the material world to check out the spiritual world not the virtual world. That like we’re already living a fake life and wanna escape it for an even faker world? Don’t know about you but I think we’re robotic enough as it is. E.g. When Meera and I got the puzzle Shorty mentioned something about ‘puzzles are for kids or old people’. Most folks already know I go against conventional methods so that was totally robotic right. Now picture yourself as a really complex machine (human body)… and you still wanna throw in some nanobots to ‘help’ you to lose even more freedom in the guise of getting freedom? Come on now! Ok that’s better, they go into emergence, feedback loops, bottom-up governance (something about a singular dumb um.. entity/unit cant do much but lots of dumb things together make something very intelligent e.g. ants). Evolution of technology, things like reverse compilers (optimised chips to play/run programs), evolutionary computation (chips designed by machines which discovered the most efficient system). See I’m not gonna start explaining each one so I’ll just list em… genetic programming, cellular automaton, parallel computation. Yooooo virtual creatures… didn’t know this is where I saw it before. This is wicked… basically say they have a creature that’s made of two blocks… then they’re given goals and these things would evolve to perform that particular task. Kinda like the programmers play God coz then they single out the survivors and move on from there. Google the Kismet robot (hope its online) coz that’s just the bomb about how they look to be nurtured and even bored with things and try make you aware of what they’re attention is on. Gotta get some sleep… lets just say too much extra info.

   9 – The Burly Man Chronicles. Whoa that was a lot! This one profiles the ‘society’ of craftspeople, actors and filmmakers who devoted years to the movie trilogy and the Enter the Matrix console game. Starts of with random shots of behind the scenes ‘boring to the average viewer’ stuff. More of Mo-Cap stuff, zero-gravity shoots, constructing the freeway, PPM’s (Post-Production Meetings), precision drivers, bit of repetition humour, Agent Smith/Hugo in facial, facial expression and body capture, even made a mould of him from the nipples up. Carrie-Anne gets a butt mould for her seat too. Keanu getting worked up in the Burly Brawl, THE ZION TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION, 969 folks in the set for the Zion rave kinda scene after which they had their own after party. IF ANYONE COMES ACROSS THIS DANCE MOVIE CLIP PLEASE HOOK ME UP. All that was just the USA bit. The Australian one required over 140 sets. SETS!!! 7500 costumes, 1450 self-covered buttons. Now the shoots here were more than double of USA and to top that there was a 2nd Unit preparing to shoot for the same amount of days. R.I.P – Tragedy struck as Aliyah died in the plane crash (her cast was meant to be Zee). A fire station lost 11 guards too and something to do with a painting to raise money. Original Oracle dies after the first two and is recast. Stats: 582000 staples, 245 miles of wood, 2853 gallons of glue to construct Hel Night Club. 300000+ keys in the Keymakers den. When it comes to dates they show 11.01.01 twice, that don’t make sense, or does it to some? Remember the Agent Smith mould? That was for 60 masks for all them Agent Smiths you see in 2 & 3. For a lot of the cast and crew it was their first time they’ve reached ‘day 200’.  Has a Follow the White Rabbit section. (Did I mention they had a lot of Alice in Wonderland references in the… um… first movie I think hehehe kinda lost track. White Rabbit bit seems to be more info about individual craftspeople that devoted so much. When watching Burly Man Chronicles a white/green rabbit would appear on screen and if you pressed the enter button it’d take you to these individual info clips. PRE-PRODUCTION… Includes crew from the following – Storyboard, conceptual designer, art directors, preproduction, script supervisor, costume designer, production designer, construction supervisor, weapons coordinator. ALAMEDA SHOOT… Rigmaster section is about – special effects coordinator, ronumentary????, oh Rondell (supervising stunt coordinator, a day in the life if Agent Johnson, Actor Anthony Zerbe. AUSTRALIA SHOOT… Tribute to Aliyah, Gloria Foster and especially September 11th. World Champion Boxer Roy Jones Jr. tells us how it feels to play his first part in the movie. Mary Alice (Gloria’s replacement as the Oracle). Dessert of the Real is about the desserts the chef’s prepared and some really odd-looking dishes… did anyone notice that in the movies? Anyway it’s basically catering up-close. Makeup Department Head Peter Robb-King mostly on blinding and charring Keanu’s eyes for the scene. Upgrades is about the new improve agents. Observation: Smith calls Neo Mr. Anderson. The Upgrades are Agent Thompson and Agent Jackson. If we go back a few lines you’ll remember the day in the life of Agent Johnson. Wonder if the common suffix have a reaSON. Actor Ian Bliss. Publicity shoot. A day in the life of Dr. Cornell West. Says, his writings influenced the Wachowski Brothers and they even had a part for him as Councillor West. And finally The End section mostly about crew being away from family and home so long, witnessing separations and so on. And as always… so much more.

   10 – The Zion Archive. Starts with 30 storyboards, yeah right storyboards! More like amazingly avid cartoon strips/comic book slide show. Loads of sketches and draft concepts for 18 character profiles. 13 Ships mostly in 3D and mostly have divine names which include the Hindu Holy Trinity. 11 Machine sketches and animation profiles. Enough sketches, photographs and animations for 51 Sets. Media of all three movies… theatrical trailers, teaser trailers, TV spots, music videos. Rave Reel… Animated music video to an Indian trance track. Coz the animations were not in their final form (most of the time) I’ll just call it half-rendered custom edited animated music vid. How do I begin to explain The Matrix Online… you know how they pushed limits with the movies… well you’ll see the game is kinda like that, visit www.thematrixonline.com … they advise to let friends and family know that you shall not be available for some time (its that addictive). Shall check it out and let you know… if I return hehehe. And (not so much) more.

   Summary – First of all imagine what the props people had to go through to replace statues, pillars, cars, etc. To help your imagination, picture the amounts of takes in the fight scenes, especially the takes with Keanu. The casting itself is so deeply researched/symbolic e.g. Persephone is originally Zeus and Dimiter’s daughter who was kidnapped by some demon dude (Merovingian). Hell the trilogy is totally symbolic, I’m hoping my bro finds the fwd explaining the numbers, characters etc. Spiritual too. I mean damn these Wachowski Bros. have so much exposure and knowledge about myths, legends, philosophy, culture, religion, etc and then some. These guys have pushed nearly every component of movie making to the next level. With the first Matrix it was the Bullet Time thing that they invented. Then everyone copied it. Story-wise they merged action movies with mind fu€k movies. On the animation side their movie pushed animators to animate humans and make them look real, plus coz of extra budget some animators got to try different techniques that worked perfectly. Props learnt a thing or two, one I mentioned earlier. Sound got to experiment dangerously with their microphones. Through out it all these directing siblings always referred to the trilogy as one movie. So basically this one movie broke a whole lot of new ground. Note: Don’t know if merging action and brain/idea movies is too good an idea coz you’re too engrossed either in the violence or figuring the damn thing that you don’t really get to appreciate all the other details they put so much thought into. Personal Note: I’ve felt this trilogy and of course Lord of the Rings have a very spiritual foundation to it concerning enlightenment especially with Neo. Then again I think everything has its roots in spirituality to help branch out to The Light. PHEW… So there you have it, a 2-week challenge reviewing, the Matrix Easter-egg, hopefully it is welcomed and valued.