All I’m Offering Is the Truth: How The Matrix Has Changed — and Stayed a Classic

Liz Shannon Miller and Jonah Krueger
·8 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The post All I’m Offering Is the Truth: How The Matrix Has Changed — and Stayed a Classic appeared first on Consequence.

Welcome back to ’99 Rewind, our celebration of 25th anniversaries of the films, TV, and music from 1999. Today, it’s time to once more return to the Wachowskis’ iconic The Matrix. Also, check out this week’s easy mini-crossword, “Exit the Matrix,” and the more challenging Thursday puzzle, “Enter the Matrix.”

Liz Shannon Miller (Senior Entertainment Editor): Welcome to a Consequence Chat that spans generations. 25 years down the line, The Matrix remains one of those films where it’s hard to overstate its impact on pop culture, especially when you consider that Keanu Reeves was coming off a series of less-than-well-regarded mainstream films and no one knew who the Wachowskis were, unless they had somehow managed to see the (excellent) indie thriller Bound.

Despite those issues, Warner Bros. created a remarkably effective promotional campaign, built around the very effective tease “What is The Matrix?” I’m old enough to remember that campaign, and how the trailers highlighted both the film’s central mysteries and the revolutionary action in store — which is why my nerdy teenage self could not have been more hyped to finally see the movie on opening night, March 31st, 1999. I was ready, as a wise man said, to free my mind.

Before I tell the story of that life-changing event, though, I have a question for my colleague Jonah Krueger — hey Jonah, when did you first see The Matrix?

Jonah Krueger (Editorial Coordinator): Gosh, this is really gonna out me as an aughts baby. I have this fuzzy memory of a lazy Sunday afternoon when I must have been maybe seven or eight. My dad and I were flipping through the cable channels, not really paying attention, when we stumbled across some dude in latex and leather impossibly dodging bullets.

My dad instantly lit up, leading me to ask what we were watching. “The Matrix,” he said, to which I responded exactly how Warner Bros. would have wanted me to: “What is The Matrix?”After catching maybe the last 20 minutes (not counting commercial breaks), I became obsessed with tracking down the movie. One trip to Blockbuster and a pillow fort-building session later, I finally settled in to take the red pill for the first time, subsequently showing it to as many of my friends as I could before I had to return the DVD.

Liz: Since we’re talking honestly about ages, I was 17 when the movie premiered, which meant that I was old enough to drive myself to the theater and the MPAA had no problem with me buying a ticket.

The MPAA, however, would not have loved the fact that I brought my 14-year-old brother with me. At that point in my life, it might have been the closest I ever came to breaking the law: Telling Eric to stand behind me in the line at the ticket counter, so they wouldn’t be able to see him while I asked for two tickets. No one paid us much attention, though, because the multiplex was buzzing with crowds attending staggered screenings — and thus we successfully saw what was considered a pretty violent R-rated movie at the time.

Did it register that way for you as a kid, though?

Jonah: Most definitely — the violence was a main part of the draw! In fact, thinking back, it must have been one of the first rated-R movies I saw. But the fighting and shooting and kung fu were just too well-choreographed and fun to register as scary or disturbing. Rather, it had me and my friends pretending we knew martial arts and leaning back as far as we could before we fell.

Liz: I love that no matter what the era, kids will still play-act their favorite movies on the playground. But from your perspective, as someone who saw The Matrix at a very early age, did it feel all that revolutionary to you?

Jonah: It did certainly feel revolutionary, on a personal level. Beyond simply inspiring a mini-obsession and helping lay the groundwork for my taste, its ideas and execution totally left a lasting impact on me. Coming up in a post-Matrix world, I saw plenty of derivative, forgettable action movies that were indebted to The Matrix before I ever knew of the film’s existence. And yet, despite that, it still felt fresh and different, even though I had ostensibly seen all of its “tricks” be incorporated and watered down in other movies.

Liz: It really warms my heart to know that the originality of the original Matrix still rang out for you, as I try to remember my biggest takeaways from seeing it for the first time. One thing I do remember is how positively I responded to how, like Star Wars before it, the Wachowskis brought together so many pre-existing components to create that original vision, including Hong Kong action films and cyberpunk narratives. It’s also a pretty perfect example of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces in action — which is one of the most fascinating things about talking about large-scale blockbuster franchises like this: Across the ages, people love stories about an unassuming hero, whose encounter with a mentor figure launches them into a world-expanding journey.

Jonah: 100%. Even though I had no idea who Campbell was as a kid, I identified with Neo in a way that made me feel like I too could be “the chosen one” and just didn’t know it yet.

Also like Star Wars, the art direction and visuals were astonishing. The design of the ships and machines, the plugs in the back of the characters’ heads, NPCs morphing into agents — the movie was full of images that made me want to jump into its world. I even tried to track down sunglasses that looked like Morpheus’s for longer than I’d care to admit.

Liz: I mean, those sunglasses were so cool. How did you feel about the love story, in those early days? Because that was always a big element of the film for me — and honestly still is, today. Though I fully admit that the blunt force logic of “Trinity is destined to fall in love with the One, and she’s fallen in love with Neo, ergo he is the One and thus he can’t die at the end” maybe doesn’t hold up as well as it might.

Jonah: I definitely had friends at the time who found the love story yucky and boring (girls did have cooties, to be fair), but I always bought into it. Maybe I was just an overly sensitive kid, or maybe the blunt-force logic of it all just appealed to my underdeveloped brain, but it hit me right in the heart!

Liz: So as a kid growing up with these films, what was your reaction to the sequels? Did you immediately dive right into Reloaded and Revolutions after catching the first one?

Jonah: You guessed it, I pretty quickly dove into the sequels. Though they didn’t hit quite as hard, and the philosophy went a little over my adolescent head, I still loved a lot about them. Moments like the highway chase and the purgatory-esque train station really stuck with me. And at the end of the day, it was more Matrix, and I had already decided that that was something I liked. I was stubborn enough to like them, even if deep down they didn’t floor me as much as the original.

Liz: So you weren’t furious over them killing Trinity? I envy you being free of that burden. It took 18 years, and Lana Wachowski making a whole other movie, for me to let go of that.

Jonah: I admit that I had a lust to appear smart and cool, and part of that was pretending that I understood and agreed with every decision the Wachowskis made (which extended to my love of Speed Racer, but that’s a story for another chat)!

Liz: To wrap things up, do you feel like you’d feel differently about The Matrix if you had seen it for the first time today?

Jonah: Honestly, I think I would have loved it every bit as much. I might not have physically acted out the scenes, mind you, but it’s just such an exciting film. Perhaps I’m under the influence of only ever existing in a post-Matrix world, but it has a certain indescribable quality all movies deemed classics do, the intersection between brilliant intentional ideas and accidentally wading into uncharted waters. When I go back to it today, it’s not out of nostalgia (okay, maybe just a little bit out of nostalgia), but rather because it still gets me genuinely excited.

Liz: I mean, same! It’s still such a deliciously rewatchable movie, in addition to the brilliance you point out above.

The most enlightening thing to come from this conversation, I think, is that the major difference between our two perspectives is that I have a lot more to say critically about the franchise, after following it in real-time. Looking to the future, it feels like we could anticipate other franchises experiencing a similar shift, as the criticisms that might accompany a great film’s original release get flattened out by the passing of time. In the end, it’s the film that truly endures.

Jonah: I think you’re exactly right about the power of time and great, lasting cinema, Liz. I mean, just wait til you get my generation to start talking about the Star Wars prequels… (I say, lobbing a grenade straight towards a group of Gen Xers.)

Liz: Oh dear god, yes. Stay tuned for ’99 Rewind Presents: Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, coming to a website near you this May.

The Matrix and its sequels are currently streaming on Max.

All I’m Offering Is the Truth: How The Matrix Has Changed — and Stayed a Classic
Liz Shannon Miller and Jonah Krueger

Popular Posts

Subscribe to Consequence’s email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.