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This is pretty long, but here it goes. I got all of this information from (Internet Movie Database). Very good site, so check it out!
TRIVIA FOR THE MATRIX:
Ewan McGregor was offered, but turned down, the part of Neo. Val Kilmer was at one time attached to play Morpheus.
Will Smith was approached to play Neo but turned it down in order make Wild Wild West (1999).
Before filming, the principal actors spent four months with martial arts experts learning the fight moves. From October 1997 to March 1998.
'Moss, Carie-Ann' twisted her ankle while shooting one of her scenes but decided not to tell anyone until after filming, so they wouldn't re-cast her.
According to some crew members, Keanu Reeves was really vomiting as shown in the film when his character Neo leaves The Matrix for the first time. It was because of a chicken pot pie he ate, apparently.
Sets from the film Dark City (1998), including rooftops, buildings and others exteriors sets, were used in this film. The rooftops that Trinity runs across at the beginning of the film are the same ones that John Murdoch runs across in Dark City.
There are many who might legitimately claim to have invented the time-freezing photographic technique used in the movie. It might have been French director Michel Gondry who used it for the first time in a commercial (for an insurance company) and then in a video clip for Björk. It might have been architectural graphics artist Matthew Bannister who, in his academic work, suggested that motion and time in video could be separated, and proposed an apparatus for doing it much like that used for the film (but who was unable to make it work with then-available technology). Or even artist Tim Macmillan who demonstrated the technique on British television in 1993. It may be that each of them, and others, invented it independently. The debate rages on. But not here.
The scene in which Neo meets the gifted children in the Oracle's apartment is an homage to the similar scene at the end of Akira (1988). The Wachowski brothers acknowledged the influence of anime films in a brief USA Today interview a few days after the film's release.
There are numerous references to "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There".
When Tank is uploading the Martial Arts training to Neo, there is a shot of the computer screen as it scrolls through the various Martial Arts styles. The graphics have a computer image of a person and the title of the style below. The first one on the screen is entitled "Drunken Boxing". Woo-ping Yuen, the fight choreographer for this movie, was director and fight choreographer for 'Chan, Jackie' 's early hit, Zui quan (1978) in which Jackie Chan's character masters the style of Zui Chuan, or Drunken Boxing.
When Neo is calling to get extracted from the Matrix, he says, "Mr. Wizard get me out of here." - a reference to the 1960s cartoon Tooter Turtle. Each episode, Tooter would yearn to be something he wasn't and have his friend Mr. Wizard (a lizard) wave his magic wand and make him an astronaut or a scientist or whatever. Inevitably, Tooter would quickly get himself into trouble and call out, "Help Mr Wizard," and the lizard would say, "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for this one to come home." Tooter would be transported back to his old self and be chided by Mr Wizard to "be happy with what you are".
When the traitor meets with agent "Smith", we learn that his name is Reagan. He says he wants to be someone important, maybe an actor, and that he wants to "remember nothing".
When Neo fights Morpheus in the construct, the three pieces of music that play on the score are termed the "Bow Whisk Orchestra" by composer Don Davis. It consists of a semi-improvisational piece with Asian instruments by Davis, the song "Leave You Far Behind" by Lunatic Calm, and another piece by Davis called "Switch or Break Show". Both "Bow Whisk Orchestra" & "Switch Or Break Show" are anagrams of "Wachowski Brothers". Also, when Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity return to the building after visiting the Oracle, the piece of music that plays is called "Threat Mix". Later, when in the same building Morpheus fights Agent Smith, the musical piece is called "Exit Mr. Hat". Both "Threat Mix" & "Exit Mr. Hat" are anagrams of "The Matrix".
When Neo is in the elevator on his way up to see the Oracle, to his right one can see "KYM" carved into the wall. This apparently refers to Kym Barrett, costume designer.
As Neo runs through the old lady's apartment near the end of the film, we see an image on the TV of a menacing man in a black suit coat. The image is that of one of the Number 2s from the TV show "Prisoner, The" (1967).
The glyphs on the computer screens, with the exception of the call traces, consists of reversed letters, numbers, and Japanese katakana characters.
All of the references to street corners (e.g. Wells and Lake) are real intersections in Chicago, USA, the Wachowski brothers' hometown. The subway train has signs for "Loop," another Chicago reference. The film however is quite obviously not set in Chicago or any other real city (though it was filmed in Sydney).
Trinity's room number is 303 ("trinity" 3). Neo is The One and number of his apartment is 101.
When Neo is meeting with the Oracle, the music playing in the background in her apartment is Duke Ellington's "I'm Beginning to See the Light".
The number of the phone Trinity was using at the beginning of the movie is 555-0690.
In the Oracle's waiting room, the television is showing white rabbits (which, at the beginning of the film, Neo was instructed to follow) from Night of the Lepus (1972).
Some personal information can be seen on Thomas Anderson's "criminal record" that Agent Smith glances at when he interrogates Neo: - The last update to the file was July 22, 1998 - Neo's date of birth is "March 11, 1962" - Neo's place of birth is "Lower Downtown, Capitol City" - Neo's mother's maiden name is "Michelle McCahey" - Neo's father's name is "John Anderson" - Neo attended "Central West Junior High" and "Owen Paterson High" (named after the film's production designer).
The motorcycle Trinity rides is a jet black Triumph Speed Triple.
The name of the company Neo works for is Metacortex.
"Know thyself", the phrase in the kitchen of the "oracle", was the inscription above the entrance of the Delphic Oracle.
The car used while inside the matrix is a black 1964 Lincoln Continental.
The name of the company Neo works for is Metacortex. The roots of this word are meta-, which according to Webster's means "going beyond or higher, transcending," and -cortex, which is "the outer layer (boundary) of gray matter surrounding the brain." Thus, Metacortex is "transcending the boundaries of the brain," which is precisely what Neo proceeds to do.
Neo's room number is 101. Room 101 was the place in George Orwell's book "1984" where people were sent to be tortured and would end up believing something that wasn't true.
Principal photography wrapped at 1:01 AM with the scene where the characters are inside the wall, climbing down. -Principal photography took 25 weeks/118 days
The hallway where Trinity first runs from the agents is where Neo makes his last stand against the agents.
This is the second time that Laurence Fishburne plays a captain of a ship. He was Captain Miller in Event Horizon (1997).
Neo is often referred to as the "One". One is an anagram of Neo.
The book Neo hides his computer discs in is called "Simulation and Simulacra". The chapter where they're hidden called Nihilism. Nihilism often involves a sense of despair coupled with the belief that life is devoid of meaning.
The blocking moves Neo uses against Agent Smith upon his realization of being "the One", are the exact same techniques Daniel LaRusso uses against Mr. Miyagi upon his realization that he has in fact been karate training in Karate Kid, The (1984). Sand the floor, paint the fence, wax on, wax off...
Reeves was recovering from neck surgery while training for the Matrix. During the four months of training, he had to wear a neck brace.
By the middle of 2002, the famous "Bullet Time" sequence had been spoofed in over 20 different movies.
In the early stages of developing what was to become the famous Bullet Time sequence, visual effects supervisor John Gaeta and director of photography Bill Pope constructed many gimbals and dollies in the hope of creating the effect the old fashioned way. The original dolly they created for the camera would be lead around the action at a tremendous speed, but after many failed tests and broken dollies, they opted for computer graphics, which meant writing an entirely new program for the effect. However, the Bullet Time sequence does still use one very old fashioned technique: still photography.
The windows that Trinity crashes the helicopter into are apparently those of the Columbia Pictures screening room in Sydney, Australia.
The date stamp on the phone trace program in the opening sequence reads "2/18/98". The date stamp on the phone trace program in the closing sequence reads "9/18/99". This means that the events in the movie take place over exactly 19 months.
Before his character's final speech at the end, Keanu Reeves never has more than five sentences in a row to speak.
When Morpheus is explaining "What the Matrix is" to Neo, he uses the phrase, "Welcome, to the desert of the real." This is a paraphrase from Jean Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation", the hollowed-out book where Neo keeps his illegal software. The quote can be found in Chapter One - The Precession of Simulacra, Page one, Paragraph 2, "It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself."
Numerous sets of actual identical twins (not CGI generated) were used as extras in the scene in which Morpheus takes Neo through a computer simulation of The Matrix.
Shot almost entirely in Sydney, Australia, the location scouts found it very difficult to find burned-out, American-ghetto-looking locations. Many of the urban-decay locations had to be created from scratch.
GOOFS FOR MATRIX:
Continuity: In the first scene in which Neo appears, we see him from above, sleeping in front of his computer. The keyboard he is using is a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro with the atypical curved key configuration. When messages begin appearing on his screen, he tries to stop them by hitting various keys, but the closeup of the keys show keys from a standard keyboard that are clearly not the keys on a Natural Keyboard Pro.
Continuity: When Neo (Anderson) is first handed the FedEx envelope, he moves his hand to the corner to open it - then the camera shifts, and he moves his hand to the corner to open it.
Continuity: When Neo first meets Morpheus, they shake hands. We see Morpheus from behind, and his left arm is behind his back. Then we see Morpheus from the front, and his left arm is straight down at his side. Then we see Morpheus from the back again, and his arm is once again behind his back.
Crew or equipment visible: When Neo is examining the spoon prior to bending it, a crew member dressed in black - probably the cameraman - is reflected in the spoon.
Continuity: When Neo is being shot and is subsequently "killed" there is a shot showing the cartridges leaving the Smith's pistol. One of the cartridges is clearly a spent blank with crimping rather than a spent live bullet cartridge.
Crew or equipment visible: When Neo backflips off the train tracks onto the platform, at the end of the flip, a few inches of the wires can be seen either side of his hands.
Continuity: After Trinity crashes through the window, tumbles down the stairs and then points her guns back toward the window, we cut to a close shot of the top of the stairs showing a hanging light fixture swinging back and forth. A few seconds later, during an over-the-shoulder shot from Trinity's perspective, the fixture is perfectly still. The sound and image imply that it did not start swinging until she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Continuity: In the scene where Neo has hundreds of acupuncture needles in his body, needles disappear from his head. The comments on DVD indicate that all of the needles were a prosthetic device except for the ones in his head. The real needles are there when the camera looks at him from the side, but then disappear as the camera moves in.
Revealing mistakes: During the Agent/Trinity chase, when the last police officer fails to completely jump across, his legs cause the "brick" wall to vibrate noticeably.
Boom mike visible: While showing Neo what has happened to his real world, Morpheus looks to the sky and remarks: "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony." As he looks up, you can see the boom mike reflecting in his sunglasses.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the hallway scene with Neo and Trinity the whole hallway is basically shot to pieces. But when we see the explosion in the hallway later neither the poles nor the walls have a scratch on them. That's because most of the battle took place at the opposite end of the hall; the damage drops off markedly as you get closer to the elevators (which is the only area shown in the explosion scene). There is some rubble visible in the explosion.
Continuity: When Morpheus attacks Smith to save Neo, Morpheus headbutts Smith and knocks his glasses off (camera angle behind Morpheus). But then there is a shot from Smith's POV and his glasses are on again, then the camera shifts to Morpheus' view and they're gone again.
Revealing mistakes: During the beginning scene, when the officers are chasing Trinity on the rooftops, over their heads, you can see that the sky is really the ceiling of the soundstage painted black.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: After Morpheus is rescued from the Agents, the blood and marks on his face are gone. He's been under a huge stream of water that probably washed them away.
Continuity: Near the end of the subway fight scene, Agent Smith throws Neo into a wall after which he falls onto the rails along with debris from the wall, but when Neo backflips onto the platform, the debris is neatly positioned by the wall.
Continuity: During the lobby shootout, Neo cartwheels while firing an M-16 rifle at some guards, however, one shot shows Neo firing in completely the wrong direction.
Errors in geography: The matrix is apparently simulating some unknown American city (the accents of the characters, references to one phone call, IRS, and Social Security number). However, the sign near the elevator button refers to a "lift," a rooftop sign says "authorised," an ATM has a sign for an Australian bank, and cars are seen driving on the left (or, when Neo drops the phone, on the right against the road markings). In the very final scene where Neo makes the phone call, after he hangs up there is a clear shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. Arguments for these inconsistencies being part of the matrix and hence not problems don't wash, since the matrix is trying to be accurate (else why make it so much like the "real" world).
Continuity: When Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus, he has his hands on his head, his index finger is in front of his ear in the shot from behind, but in the shot from the other direction, his index finger is behind his ear.
Crew or equipment visible: When Neo reaches to open the door to the Oracle's apartment, the lens of a camera is visible. The camera itself seems to be covered with green cloth to match the color in the hallway, and even has a yellow tie painted on it to match the one Morpheus is wearing, since he is standing behind the camera.
Continuity: When Neo is being interrogated by the agents, Agent Smith plops a folder on the table. When he opens it, there are no pages on the back of the cover. When the camera shifts as Agent Smith is looking through the pages, we see several pages on the back of the cover that Agent Smith never placed there.
Continuity: In the lobby battle, when Neo fires the two small machine guns with long barrels and curved magazines, the shell casings are far too long; these weapons are Czech Skorpions in 7.65mm (.32 caliber). In addition to being too long, the neck of the shell bottlenecks (slopes downward) about 2/3 of the way down, while 7.65mm shells have no bottleneck. These shells could very well come from the M-16 Neo fires later.
Factual Errors: When Neo is fighting the agent in the subway scene, they shoot at each other in bullet time. Though there are bullets coming out of the pistols, the actions of the pistols (the top part of the gun that slides back to allow the spent cartridge to spring out of the barrel) are not moving to let the pistol reload. In addition, there is no recoil.
Revealing mistakes: Less than a second before Neo jumps off the building in "the first jump," special effect artifacts are briefly visible around him. (As he's running, side view, against the sky.)
Continuity: When Morpheus and Neo are in the Agent Training program, the first shot of Neo you don't see a dove in the reflective glass behind him, in the second shot you see one.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Cypher couldn't use the chairs by himself to go inside the Matrix. We see Cypher typing on the keyboards, watching the Matrix in code. He tells Neo that you have to look at it in code when you are not inside, therefore justifying that he might be interacting with the Matrix through the keyboard; he is not obligated to enter the Matrix in order to change events. Trinity talks about "shifts" at the beginning of the movie, also suggesting that she can go inside the Matrix without the aid of Tank. Cypher presumably gets an inferior sense of taste and smell compared to what he would have if he were actually plugged in, or he'd have no reason to deal.
Continuity: When Neo drops the phone, the first time you see the phone falling, there is a parade marching in the street below. Cut immediately back to Neo, the street is empty.
Continuity: Numerous differences between sunglass reflections and the surroundings.
Crew or equipment visible: As Neo passes the camera while falling during the "Jump Program," his shirt is blown open by the wind and clearly shows the harness he is wearing underneath.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Neo is rescuing Trinity from the falling helicopter, he slides across the roof of a building. When he reaches the edge, his foot hits the block causing it to move, but in a way consistent with a real block whose grout is imperfect; after all, that's a rather large force.
Continuity: After Neo is shot by Agent Smith, Trinity leans close to whisper. Her hair begins to fall over her face. Cut to another angle and her hair is back in place again.
Continuity: Just before the door to the Oracle's apartment opens, Morpheus has his glasses on. After the door opens and the camera angle switches, his glasses are in his left hand (visible after Neo crosses in front). Presumably he snatched them off in the same move that instantly took his arms from a 90-degree angle to straight down.
Continuity: Cypher's cigar changes hands in the restaurant.
Continuity: The piece of meat Cypher eats at the restaurant changes from one shot to the next.
Revealing mistakes: When Neo is running from the agents, he jumps off a fire escape, and when the camera flashes further away you can clearly see the thick gray mat used for the fall.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The Massive Attack song "Dissolved Girl" playing in Neo's headphones is track 6 on the album, not track 5, and the timing on the counter is off in relation to the actual song. Given Neo's equipment, it could well have been a homemade custom CD.
Continuity: When his boss, Mr. Reinhart, is lecturing Thomas Anderson, Anderson's hands are in front when seen from outside and from the rear, and behind him when seen from Mr. Reinhart's desk.
Continuity: When Morpheus and Neo move from the dojo to the jump program, the shot from their viewpoint looking down shows them landing far from any roof structures, on a building much higher than any nearby. The next shot of Neo shows them to be right next to a structure, on a building about as tall as one right across the street.
Continuity: While Neo is on the way to the Oracle, his sideburns change length and shape.
Continuity: When Morpheus is showing Neo the construct, there are no shadows (even under their feet). However, when Neo wants out, he steps back and there are shadows under his feet.
Continuity: When Trinity learns how to fly the helicopter, she is given instructions to fly a B-212 (which is what's shown) with a Bell JetRanger image on the computer.
Continuity: When Neo is leaving the Oracle's apartment, the cookie in his hand (down by his side) has a bite taken out of it. A few seconds later, Neo brings the cookie up to take a bite - and it is whole.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The computer screen gives the time of Trinity's phone trace as 13:24:18. While it is dark outside, that time could be UTC.
Continuity: As the team prepares to visit the Oracle, we see Tank "loading them up" pressing buttons on the various keyboards around him. Before the last cut, his right hand is up, pressing buttons while his left hand is down. When we cut to the shot above Tank, his left arm is up and his right arm is down.
Continuity: The gun Neo is handed as the police attack is a Sig-Sauer, but in later shots he is using a Glock, and then a Sig again.
Revealing mistakes: A security guard calls for help on his radio at the beginning of the lobby shootout. He is wearing knee pads underneath his uniform.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The chain of ammunition for the gun in the helicopter does not feed directly into the gun; it goes through a feeding mechanism between the ammo box and the gun. Further, the shells that drop are indeed spent; they have a bottleneck shape that confuses some viewers.
Revealing mistakes: During the fight scene in the subway, as the Agent is about to punch through the concrete post, the section to be punched out is clearly visible.
Crew or equipment visible: When Neo is holding Morpheus outside the helicopter, a safety cable is visible as a black line along Morpheus's arm going up to Neo in the last long shot before Neo lets go.
Continuity: In the "dodge this" scene, Trinity's gun changes from a Beretta 92F to a Beretta 84F.
Continuity: When Neo backflips out of the train's way, the distance between him and the train changes.
Continuity: When Agent Smith fires his gun at the helicopter, the bullets hit on Trinity's right side, but when Trinity reacts to the shots, she looks to her left.
Continuity: After Neo steals a man's cellular phone and the agents shoot at him, we see him running down an alley with the back of his shirt untucked from his pants. As he kicks in the door, his shirt has tucked itself back into his pants.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the rescue of Morpheus, at one point Trinity is seen to use both hands in controlling the flight stick of the helicopter. While a helicopter normally requires use of two sticks to control, in the kind of emergency situation shown, the collective (controlling up/down motion) can be temporarily ignored.
Continuity: Blood on Neo's mouth as the subway approaches.
Factual Errors: People seem to physically recover in this film from very severe traumas, that normally would disable them. We see Tank take it twice, and then he is completely healthy (he's even in the "real" world, with no visible signs of damage). Morpheus takes a slug in the leg in the helicopter jump, but recovers easily. Neo is grazed twice in "bullet time" but it doesn't hamper him at all. The injuries to Morpheus from the torture also don't show up in the real world.
Continuity: The width of Cypher's beard.
Continuity: When Neo is in the old Lincoln with Trinity, Switch, and Apoc, Trinity says, "Apoc, lights." A close-up of the light switch follows. The external lights should be off because the switch is all the way in, yet it is night and the lights have been shown to be on. Apoc then pulls the switch halfway out, which would turn on the exterior running lights only, not the interior lights. He should've turned the switch, not pulled it.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: On Neo's introduction to the Construct, Morpheus jacks him in, then shows up in the Construct himself almost immediately, far quicker than he could have jacked in himself. But it's quite possible Neo was held in some kind of limbo until Morpheus was ready to join him.
Continuity: After Neo fights Agent Smith in the subway, he is about to run up the right side of the steps. He stops to look at the subway train, sees Agent Smith get off the train, then turns to run up the center of the steps without moving sideways.
Continuity: When Neo is interrogated by the agents, the reflection in Agent Smith's glasses do not correspond to the action in the editing. For instance, we see Neo standing in one shot, but the reflection in Agent Smith's glasses shows Neo sitting in the next shot.
Revealing mistakes: In the lobby scene, after Neo has jumped in the air to kick the last guard, the guard drops his gun and the nozzle bends when it hits the ground, showing the gun to be rubber.
Continuity: When Neo is flushed from his cubicle and fished up with the claw from a hatch in the Nebuchadnezzar he is passed out. But as he enters the ship he clearly moves his feet to avoid hitting the rim of the hatch.
Crew or equipment visible: The "reflection" of Neo's hand on the knob of the door to the Oracle's home shows a hooded camera operator.
Continuity: When Morpheus escapes the military building he snaps his handcuffs but they remain on. When Neo grabs Morphous, in mid air, no handcuffs are visible. The handcuffs re-appear when Neo drops Morpheus onto one hand.
Crew or equipment visible: When Morpheus and Neo enter the white construct room the camera crane is reflected in Morpheus' glasses in several shots.
Continuity: At the end of the Oracle scene, Neo takes one of the cookies that have just come out of the Oracle's oven. Seconds later, he bites into it and it snaps as if it were cold. If it had indeed come out of the oven a few minutes earlier, it would still be soft.
Revealing mistakes: The knife Trinity throws flies across and hits a guy in the face. The knife can be seen to buckle, revealing that it is made of a flimsier material (such as plastic or rubber).
Continuity: When Neo opens fire from the helicopter, and the glass begins to break, none of the three agents is visible (though they should be) and the chair in which Morpheus should be sitting can be seen to be empty.
Crew or equipment visible: Dolly track, camera, and crew reflected in Neo's sunglasses after putting them on at the end of the film, when he steps out of the phone booth.
Continuity: When Trinity tells the Agent to "Dodge this", his back is to her when he turns his head; she places her gun to his temple. In the next shot, when Trinity shoots him in the middle of his forehead, he is plainly facing her but he is never shown to have turned around.
Crew or equipment visible: When Neo sits at his desk and receives the envelope with the phone in it, a crew member's hand is leaning on the left corner of his desk. (VHS version)
TRIVIA FOR MATRIX RELOADED:
Actress/Singer Aaliyah was originally cast in the role of Zee but was killed in a plane crash on 25 August 2001.
Gloria Foster also died before the end of shooting the second Matrix film. She had done most of her scenes for Reloaded but had not done any for the third film.
A 17-minute battle sequence alone cost over $40 million.
The 1.4-mile, three-lane loop highway was built specifically for the chase scene on the decommissioned Alameda Point Navy Base. It was destroyed when filming was complete.
It was reported that Keanu Reeves volunteered to give up a claim to a share of ticket sales amounting to around $38 million when producers feared that the film would never recoup the cost of the special effects.
The special effects cost $100 million U.S.
The script for the movie (while in production) was code-named "The Burly Man". "The Burly Man" is the title of the script Barton Fink is working on in the film Barton Fink.
GM donated 300 cars for use in the production of the movie. All 300 were wrecked by the end.
There were several injuries on the set: Carrie-Anne Moss broke her leg training for a wire stunt, Laurence Fishburne fractured an arm in another training incident and Hugo Weaving put out a disc in his neck while being pulled back on a wire.
The film's highway chase sequence took almost three months to shoot (longer than many films' entire shooting schedule).
When Trinity hacks the Power Station's computer, the password she uses is "Z1ON0101".
Trinity uses a genuine hack to get into the Matrix. She uses Nmap version 2.54BETA25 (an actual port scanning tool) to find a vulnerable SSH server, and then proceeds to exploit it using the SSH1 CRC32 exploit from 2001.
Cameo: [Bill Pope] The director of photography makes an appearance as a security guard "who gets paid to count sheep".
Matrix Reloaded promotional material was in such high demand, that distributors were extremely worried about it being stolen. To combat this, standees and banners were sent out with the code names of "Caddyshack 2" and "The Replacements". Several cinemas thought they had not received the materials due to these names, and as such, did not display them until the last minute.
The Wachowski brothers' contract for doing the Matrix Reloaded, and Matrix Revolutions, included a stipulation that would not have to do any media interviews.
Only a few of the Agent Smith clones were actually played by Hugo Weaving. Open casting calls for males with similar body shapes and structures took place, and Weaving's head was superimposed on them later.
Professional Taekwondo instructors were used for some of the stunts, including WTF silver medalist Master Timothy Connelly.
The red chair Morpheus is sitting in when he is expounding his plan to access the source is the same red chair he was sitting in when he offered Neo the red and blue pills in Matrix, The (1999) and when he explained to Neo what the Matrix was.
The two freeways referenced in the movie were the "101" and the "303"
The tractor-trailer used in the freeway chase scene has "Big Endian Eggs" written on it's side. This is a reference to Swift's Gulliver's Travels: "The Lilliputians, being very small, had correspondingly small political problems. The Big-Endian and Little-Endian parties debated over whether soft-boiled eggs should be opened at the big end or the little end," ("Big-endian" has also been adopted as computer terminology.)
There are 1,943 names in the credits.
Historical reference: the Merovingians were the ruling class of France in the 7th Century A.D. It is also the name of a type of Gnostic Church (many elements of Gnosticism appear in the Matrix films).
Because the twins' Cadillac Escalade EXT was not in production at the time of the movie's filming, General Motors had to graft together fiberglass Cadillac parts with prototype Chevrolet Avalanche pickup trucks, to create the black truck seen in the freeway chase. The Lincoln Continental from Matrix, The (1999) makes a brief cameo appearance toward the beginning of the film. The underground garage where the characters select a car is populated with all Cadillacs, including a classic 1950s El Dorado and prototype of the 2004 XLR.
There are many references to number 101.
When Agent Smith pulls up in an Audi at the beginning of the film, his license plate is "IS 5416". In the King James Bible, Isaiah 54:16 says, "Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy."
One of the freeway signs during the freeway says "Whipple Ave, Woodside Rd, Marsh Rd" - which are three real consecutive freeway exits on the 101 freeway south of San Francisco.
According to Oakland city officials who worked with the filmmakers on the downtown Oakland shots, all red and blue colors had to be removed, so sidewalk curbs were painted over. Also, there could be no greenery or other plant life, so filming was done over the winter before tree leaves sprouted in the spring.
Carrie-Ann Moss did some of her own driving on the motorcycle in the highway scene.
This is the highest grossing R-rated movie.
The role of "Seraph" was originally written specifically for Jet Li. When Li declined, the role was then changed to a female and offered to Michelle Yeoh, who turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.
It took Carrie Anne Moss 6 months just to get the "Scorpion Kick" in the beginning of scene correctly.
Lambert Wilson's French accent as The Merovingian is intentionally exaggerated at the directors' demand. Wilson speaks English very well and said it was his only deception towards the movie.
The fight sequence of Neo versus Agent Smith and his clones (a.k.a. The Burly Brawl) took 27 days to shoot.
GOOFS FOR MATRIX RELOADED:
Continuity: Bullet holes are already visible on a truck that will be shot at later in the freeway sequence.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Since most of the highway carnage was achieved by real people, really crashing, flipping and generally badly treating real cars, a great many safety precautions had to be taken. These included roll cages and other modifications to the vehicles which may be visible in some shots. While, in the strictest sense, these are "revealing mistakes", we're inclined towards lenience on the grounds that we'd rather that stunt performers didn't have to suffer for our entertainment, and they don't actually detract from the spectacle.
Continuity: When Morpheus stabs the sword into the side of the truck it is about three feet from the top. When he stands on the sword, it is about six feet down on the side. Then when he grabs the sword to fight the agent, it is back at the top again
Continuity: When Trinity is driving down the freeway, the bullet holes in the right side of the car are not there on several occasions when the car comes into view from behind other vehicles.
Continuity: When The Architect is talking to Neo, the tie tack he's wearing appears to have fallen out of the left collar (right side on the screen) in one shot. Seconds later, it's back in place.
Continuity: When Trinity is driving on the freeway, her door is locked when seen from inside, but unlocked in exterior shots.
Continuity: During the car chase, the twins shoot out most of the windows in the car that Trinity and Morpheus are driving in. But when seen from the inside of the car, the windows are intact and there is no shattered glass to be seen.
Continuity: The cut on Trinity's right arm disappears and reappears throughout the freeway scene.
Continuity: During the freeway chase there is a shot over the shoulder of one of the twins as he shoots at our hero's car. He rakes his stream of bullets from left to right following the car as it passes behind a white van, but there are already bullet holes in the van *before* the stream of bullets ever reaches it.
Continuity: The tire on the front wheel of Trinity's Ducati 996 changes from slick to treaded a couple of times between shots.
Continuity: When Smith is talking to Neo in the park after seeing the oracle, the direction of the sunlight over Smith doesn't match the shadows in the park.
Continuity: When Neo meets the Oracle and she hands him a candy, she holds it out with the candy held between her fore- and middle fingers. When the camera shifts it is cradled in her palm, and then back to between her fingers.
Continuity: When Neo, Trinity and Morpheus visit Merovingian and are first seated at the long table, Merovingian has a glass of red wine - the amount in the glass changes inconsistently between shots.
Continuity: After one of the agents rips the roof off the car on the expressway, there are some shots that show the interior of the vehicle still dark as if the roof was still intact.
Continuity: When Morpheus falls off of the truck, and is caught by Niobe and Ghost, he breaks the front windshield. After Niobe moves the car to the front of the truck, you see a shot from Niobe's POV, where the windshield is unbroken. Later on, it is broken again.
Revealing mistakes: In the highway chase scene, when the agent leapfrogs onto the hood of a moving vehicle (which crushes into the ground in slow motion), you can see that the only light source is the sun, which is perpendicular to the highway (low and off to the right), and all objects in the scene are casting long shadows only to the left. The agent casts his long left shadow (which extends from the edge of the car's shadow as he lands on it), but also casts a second shadow just below and behind him directly on the car's hood. He is the only object in the scene that casts a downward shadow.
Continuity: When Agent Johnson and Morpheus are fighting on top of the truck and Johnson hits Morpheus so does a huge back flip and at that moment a car passes the truck and on the back window of the car you can see the reflection of an exit sign, Morpheus completes his back flip and he is about to loose his balance, at that moment we see no exit sign for "miles".
Crew or equipment visible: During Morpheus' "very meaning of our lives" speech, the boom operator and boom mic are visible, reflected in his sunglasses (particularly noticeable in Imax format).
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