The Matrix at 20: The films, comic books and video games that inspired the Wachowskis’ classic sci-fi movie

1/6
Harry Fletcher28 March 2019

Few films have impacted the cinematic landscape like the Matrix did in 1999.

The landmark blockbuster took nearly half a billion dollars around the world, raised the bar for spectacle and inspired a slew of high-concept sci-fi movies over the following decade.

Films like Angelina Jolie’s Wanted and the Underworld series attempted to piggyback on the success of the film’s aesthetic appeal, while the movie also prompted Hollywood to revisit the work of Philip K Dick — the novelist whose stories explore similar themes of manipulated reality, paranoia and the search for truth — with adaptations of The Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly arriving in 2002 and 2006.

Directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, then Laurence and Andrew, were hailed as two of the most innovative filmmakers in Hollywood, with their debut hailed as a game changer.

But with the exception of the famous ‘bullet time’ sequences, which used truly groundbreaking techniques to capture sweeping, slow-motion action scenes, the film’s themes, motifs and visual tropes had been around long before the Matrix made the most of them.

The film was heavily influenced by old martial arts movies, Japanese anime, comic books and even PlayStation games, with all of these informing many of the filmmakers’ creative decisions.

The BFI review of the film recognised this as such at the time, writing: “If the Wachowskis claim no originality of message, they are startling innovators of method.”

The genius of the Matrix, it seems, was not in creating something new, but in presenting old ideas in new ways.

Ghost In The Shell

No, not the controversial (and incredibly dull) Scarlett Johansson-led remake — influential Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell was a touchstone for the Wachowskis. They were transparent about it, too, showing the film to producers while pitching the concept, saying: "We wanna do that for real.”

Ghost in the Shell, which itself is based on Masamune Shirow’s manga series of the same name, follows the cyborg protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi in a world where the majority of the population are digitally augmented – exactly like the Matrix. Both films are also about the pursuit of personal truth in oppressive circumstances: just as Keanu Reeves’ Neo seeks to break free from the false reality of the Matrix, Motoko seeks to escape the restraints of her cyborg existence and awaken the conscious mind of her human “shell”.

Besides a shared cyberpunk aesthetic, entire motifs from the original movie are replicated in the Matrix — the screens of scrolling green code representing cyberspace is recycled from the 1995 film, as is the slot found at the bottom of Neo’s neck, used to plug him into the Matrix. The film even directly references a scene in which a market stall of watermelons are shot and destroyed. It was the Wachowskis' way of paying homage to a film that that influenced them so heavily.

Fist of Legend

Fists of Legend, starring Jet Li, features some of the most breathtaking action sequences in Hong Kong cinema and has come to be recognised as one of the best martial arts movies ever made.

The film was a reference point for the fight scenes in the Matrix, with the Wachowskis lobbying the studio to hire the film’s choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping for their movie. Woo-Ping — a hugely influential figure in the Hong Kong movie industry, having directed genre classics Iron Monkey and Tai Chi Master — insisted on training the actors for months until they were proficient with his techniques, which resulted in some of the film’s most impressive set pieces.

There are clear similarities between the fights in all of these movies. One of the most striking moments in the Matrix sees Neo fight Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus in a demanding training sequence. The scene employs the kind of lighting fast kung fu combinations that feature in all of Woo-Ping’s films, as well as spectacular acrobatics which defy the laws of physics — notably, the moment Neo runs up a wall and backflips spectacularly over Morpheus, hanging in the air for an age. The effect was achieved using ‘wire fu’, which combines extravagant wire work with traditional martial arts training.

The specific references to Fist of Legend are hiding in plain sight, right down to the way Morpheus subtly goads Neo with a provocative “come on” gesture — a direct reference to the way Li’s Chen Zhen gently taunts his opponents in the original movie.

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins is a best-selling Playstation game from 1998 that the Wachowskis played regularly. Released a year before the film, the game featured martial arts fighting, incredible levels of violence and heavily stylised action — something which they attempted to replicate on the big screen.

They were so taken with the game that they travelled to the game developer Acquire’s offices in Tokyo, meeting the team behind it.

“[They] spent hours here,” Takuma Endo, the president of Acquire told the Guardian. “They were fascinated at how we put the game together. They said the kind of action in our game was what they wanted to reproduce.”

Endo was happy to pose for pictures with the Wachowskis and explain how they made the game, but the film wasn't for him: "I'm not really a movie fan. I prefer comic books," he said in the same interview.

Total Recall

Total Recall — an adaptation of Philip K Dick’s novel We Can Remember It For You Wholesale — is the first movie on this list that the Matrix was clearly inspired by, but which the Wachowskis didn’t formally acknowledge. Len Wiseman’s 1990 film set the bar for simulated reality movies nearly a full decade before their effort and comparisons between both movies are unavoidable.

Total Recall follows Schwarzenegger’s protagonist Douglas Quad, who finds himself in the depths of a manipulated reality. He is quickly adopted by a group of resistors, who fight back against the malevolent forces oppressing the human race — a journey not dissimilar to Neo's.

There's more. Both films' protagonists have bugs implanted in them, which are later removed in grizzly fashion. More obvious, though, is the pill plot device used in both movies. Schwarzenegger’s Quad is offered a red pill in Total Recall by the shady Dr Edgemar, who assures him he is dreaming, and that taking the pill will return him to reality. In one of the Matrix’s most recognisable sequences, Neo must choose between a red pill and a blue pill.

“You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe,” Morpheus tells him in the iconic scene. “You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

It’s a choice between a harsh truth and a blissful lie, a construct that has since become lodged in the pop culture zeitgeist and immortalised in meme culture.

The Invisibles

DC Comics

Cult comic book series the Invisibles printed 59 issues between 1994 and 2000. The series follows freedom fighters the Invisible College, who hit back against a conspiracy to oppress the human race through use of an augmented reality. Sound familiar?

It also explores the idea of conformity and a drive to seek the truth, but it’s the aesthetics of the series that most heavily informed the Wachowskis creative decisions. It’s not hard to imagine the filmmakers drawing heavily from the source material, especially when King Mob — the bald, leather-jacket wearing hero, who leads the Invisible College — is so strikingly similar to Morpheus.

Speaking to SuicideGirls.com, Invisibles creator Grant Morrison said he wasn’t surprised that the Wachowskis had “lifted from [the] Invisibles,” revealing that they’d approached him to contribute a story to their website during the making of the film.

He later spoke to Rolling Stone about it, saying he "was told by people on the set that Invisibles books were passed around for visual reference.”

Amusingly, Grant also said the pair would have been better off if they'd kept borrowing from him for the disappointing Matrix sequels: “They should have kept on stealing from me and maybe they would have wound up with something to really be proud of — a movie that could change minds and hearts and worlds.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in