Everything is a Remix: The Matrix
by Kirby
A special treat to tide you over until Part 4 arrives (it’s running late): Rob G. Wilson made this video examining the origins of The Matrix. It was written by Cynthia Closkey and most of the comparisons were crowdsourced by Everything is a Remix fans.
Films
0:27 – Fist of Legend (1994)
0:38 – Tai-Chi Master (Twin Dragons) (1993)
0:44 – Fist of Legend (1994)
0:48 – Tai-Chi Master (Twin Dragons) (1993)
0:53 – Drunken Master (1978)
1:02 – Fist of Legend (1994)
1:09 – The Killer (1989)
1:19 – Fist of Legend (1994)
1:21 – Iron Monkey (1993)
1:31 – Once Upon A Time In China (1991)
1:36 – Fist of Legend (1994)
1:41 – Tai-Chi Master (Twin Dragons) (1993)
1:45 – Philip K. Dick Speech (1977)
2:18 – Strange Days (1995)
2:24 – Akira (1988)
2:30 – Total Recall (1990)
3:24 – Alice In Wonderland (1951)
3:42 – The Killer (1989)
3:53 – A Better Tomorrow (1986)
4:05 – Ghost In The Shell (1995)
4:32 – Akira (1998)
4:39 – Koyannisqatsi (1982)
4:49 – Dr. Who: The Deadly Assassin (1976)
5:10 – Ghost In The Shell (1995)
Music
(All sourced from The Matrix Soundtrack)
0:20 – Rob Dougan – Clubbed To Death (Kurayamino Variation)
1:44 – Hive – Ultrasonic Sound
2:30 – Lunatic Calm – Leave You Far Behind (Lunatics Roller Coaster Mix)
3:38 – Propellerheads – Spybreak
4:39 – Rob Dougan – Clubbed To Death (Kurayamino Variation)
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The Wachowski’s have always been open with what were the influences for “The Matrix.” One interesting comparison to make would be with the film “Dark City.” The film was released one year prior to “The Matrix,” was shot in the exact same studio, deals with many of the same themes, even shares a few sets and actors. It involves a man who wakes up in a false reality governed by a race of emotionally devoid, interchangeable, humanoid beings.
On top of that, it was my interest in Remix culture and “The Matrix” series that inspired me to make my own Remix. When “Reloaded” and “Revolutions” were released the Wachowskis decided to tell the story across multiple forms of media. I decided to re-appropriate the footage from the anime shorts and the video game, and reincorporate them into two 90~100 minute films:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL058A09104057A4D7&feature=edit_ok
They also stole ideas from a college student named Sxean Lee-David. Google it ! The Wachowski’s have yet to prove they’re more than just one trick ponies.
Pretty much. Though at least I respect them for creating a genuine interest in cyberpunk and anime, rather than taking all the credit like Tarantino.
Respectfully, I think you are missing the very point of this project; calling it “stealing” ignores the reality that everything is inspired and influenced by other things that came before it.
While I understand the obvious Dark City comparisons, I thought it was best to leave it out of the video. The project of The Matrix was in the works far before Dark City was released, so it was hard for me to see it as anything more than studios trying to chase a certain message. While I do believe that there were strong similarities, it’s hard to argue that the Wachowski Brothers actually used it as reference for their film. It’s a good point to mention though.
To me the most direct reference/origin to the Matrix is the 1973 film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder “World on a Wire”. The only sci-fi film that Fassbinder directed. YOu can see a trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvlQ8TQsmQA&feature=related and a very interesting interview with the cinematographer and the writer among others, fascinating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OujZZ9HsRtQ
Enjoy and remember the state of computers in 1973
Thanks a lot for this piece – I always wanted to know some of the kung-fu movies that inspired the Wachowski bros, as well as other references that you made.
I was missing some referencies to the movie Johnny Mnemonic, starred by Keanu Reeves also. Was it discarted for any reason?
Thanks a lot to the whole team for sharing your work.
Agus from Spain.
> I always wanted to know some of the kung-fu movies that inspired the Wachowski bros
This is your answer: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0950759/
Oh, thank you so much! ^^
It helps that, if I remember correctly, the Wachowski brother specifically asked Woo-Ping to be their fight choreographer because they wanted that chinese opera style of combat.
Marvelous summary – well done. But I miss one book as literary influence: Stanislav Lem – The Futurological Congress. There Ijon Tichy goes through a series of hallucinations and false awakenings which cause him to be confused about what around him is real. And at each stage, the world is becoming worse.
Doctor Who: The Deadly Assassin is not from 1993, but from 1976.
Right, thanks!
Previous “Remix” videos seemed not to have an opinion on the ethics of appropriation, but this video is styled exactly like dozens of accusatory “they copied it!” shot-for-shot videos found on YouTube, and it comes off like the famous documentary “Who Do You Think You’re Fooling?”, which showed comparison shots to posit that Reservoir Dogs was a rip-off of the film City on Fire.
Considering the focus of previous Remix videos, I assume the intent wasn’t accusatory, but it doesn’t seem to have anything else to say.
And just like some of those YouTube j’accusers, this video seems to stretch the definition a bit in order to find its examples. Many of those fight scenes are standard action movie fare, and represent “tropes” rather than “remix” material.
The Matrix has long been outed as a compilation of “original” ideas lifted directly from other sources, but comparing 2-second clips where the kung-fu choreography aligns 75% with another film does not really make that point, or any other, at all.
What this video is lacking is both context and comment. So The Matrix has a lot of influences, I think everyone knows that already. But how does this tie into the thesis of “EiaR” ?
Also, leaving out Dark City simply because it was released only a year earlier was a little strange, especially since you included Strange Days, which isn’t much older.
It’s quite possible that the similar themes were a coincidence, but there is no doubt that the look of Dark City directly influenced the production of The Matrix, and if you’re looking for some nearly identical shots which show this more convincingly than many in the video, you can find plenty here: http://galeon.hispavista.com/cinerama/actu2/matrixdarkcity.htm
And even if you are skeptical of those images, it still seems odd not to include them, since you are comfortable casually presuming that the Matrix appropriated from Doctor Who (so casually that you likely aren’t familiar with the episode in question, since you missed the airdate by more than 20 years, placing it in the *only* decade since the 50s where no new Doctor Who episodes aired), yet you don’t feel like you should include a film which was shot at the same studio and on actual sets which the Matrix *literally* reused.
Sorry, I’m a fan of the Remix series, but this just seemed like an misstep.
EDIT: **more than 15 years (I am also not familiar with that Doctor Who episode).
What is the song at the beginning?
Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan.
I believe Frank Miller wrote ‘Hard Boiled’. Of course, Geoff Darrow, did the boards for the Matrix as well as illustrate that comic. Also, there’s some cool stuff in Megazone 23 part 2 that’s an awful lot like ‘The Matrix’. The machine squids and a populous completely unaware of their true predicament.
True, but I think they are referencing the movies ‘Hard Boiled’ and ‘The Killer’ both directed by John Woo. You are correct with the Geoff Darrow connection for sure, but in this context I think they were trying to stick to other movie references? (with the exception of the speech…) But I could be wrong…
They credits at the end specifically say Hard Boiled – Geoff Darrow. I noticed the omission of Miller, too. Obviously just an oversight.
For those interested, Hard Boiled is about a cyborg tax collector with implanted memories to fool him into thinking he is human. Very much in the spirit of Bladerunner and Total Recall. And Robocop. Can’t forget Robocop.
I wish I could edit that comment. I hate typos.
EXCELLENT WORK. You have inspired my own productions over and over. Huge fan
Huge influence, uncredited by the Brothers W, is Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles.
There is a very interesting take on this in the Morrison doc “Talking With Gods”. Initially, he was angry about the extent of the “inspiration” they took from his work, and how much they were profiting. Then he decided he was fine with it, since his whole point was to get certain concepts out to the people, and these ideas were now being delivered on a much larger scale into pop culture than his work accomplished.
Later it was a cause of depression since it didn’t seem like most people really got the message, and it hadn’t seemed to affect any real cultural change. I would say this is due to the Wachowski’s getting nervous about how much the first film referenced his work and trying hard to distance in the sequels, turning them into a convoluted mess. I also kinda doubt they really grokked the concept of the Invisibles to begin with, so it’s not surprising so much got lost in “translation”.
Let’s not forget the famous quote that Morrison had about the 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.”
Thanks for the excellent post. I’ve always had an informal, relatively useless impression of The Matrix influences. Your side-by-side presentation offers hard data in place of wives’ tales. As a sometime-creative writer, I often struggle to blend all my influences into a single, unique expression. Easier said than done; your post is a helpful reminder to that overall goal.
Can you do Black Swan and Inception?
In the literary references you would mention Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes. I always felt the idea behind the Matrix was lifted from the first meditation.
You have shown the influences of The Matrix, but this does not help your argument that everything is a remix.
A remix takes the exact music tracks or the exact movie scenes recorded or filmed by others and puts new images/sounds/scenes to it.
if remixers were simply doing what you say the creators of The Matrix did (borrowing or stealing ideas, if you will) nobody, including copyright holders, would complain.
My problem with your argument is you are equating borrowing of ideas with copyright infringement, and since this “borrowing” occurs all the time, there should not be laws against it. But the two (borrowing and infringing on copyrights) are not one and the same.
Agree 100% with this comment – it seems like the term “Remix” is getting overloaded for the thesis that everything is a remix. Everything is influenced, perhaps, but a Remix is a more substantial re-working, and re-imagining, of a previous work – not a pasticcio, as this is.
With Matrix specifically, quite a lot of the scenes are not just influences but something more, the term “remix” seems appealing there IMO.
Wouldn’t mind a comparison between Inception and Paprika (and other dream-related films!)
absolutely love your work, takes the words out of my mouth when it comes to philosophy of art. Thanks so much for making these videos so well so that I don’t have to try to explain to anyone anymore — I can just link them to you
Wonderful vids! Like your page… one important film that’s missing: World on a Wire (TV 1973) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904/
Looking forward to part 4!
But the book ‘Simulacron-3′ by Daniel F. Galouye on which the ‘World on Wire’ is based, is mentioned as literary influence at the end of the clip.
By the way. ‘World on Wire’ is a masterpiece of TV science fiction. SciFi without any special effects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3
You guys forgot Lawnmower Man
this is really good though!
While congratulations are in order for the excellent work everyone’s done compiling the “references” for this video, I have to agree with other commenters that these are “tropes”, naturally there’s going to be some overlap because there’s only so many ways to stage a fight scene. On a philosophical level, you have to dig deeper – this video acknowledges the same influences that Wachowskis have been happy to reaffirm – the bonus materials for all three films include an exploration of several works referenced and the film shares a masterful choreographer, the great Yuen Woo-ping, who also designed the fights in Fist of Legends. So while there’s an overlap, it is a remix in that it’s an appropriation of tropes, and for the most part not outright recreation. “Dark City” is sorely missed in this video as well.
I’d like to recommend the series ‘The Story of Film: An Odyssey’ currently running on Channel 4 in the UK.
The series tells the history of cinema from the early days untill now in both technical and artistic ways. It shows many examples where directors have been inspired by previously made movies.
This one falls way behind. The references are weak and manipulative, for I could also prove a “remix” by simply taking some 2sec-scenes and proclaim a dependency…
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the Matrix wasn’t clearly influenced by martial art movies and such, but this itself diminishes your approach and renders eye-candy only – not very tasty one I might say…
Original or not, The Matrix had a huge cultural impact in our world. I’d love to see a sort of “reverse episode” of this showing the impact and influence of The Matrix in the media world. You could include Equilibrium (2002) or the Max Payne video-games (the whole bullet-time thingy).
I think that could be interesting, not only for the Matrix but for other films as well and it could be a fun change of pace.
Looking forward to Part 4.
Kirby,
Can you tell us when part 4 is coming? It is delayed, but when is the date now?
Gr
Watching the end of the video, just gave me the idea of a short story that could be in Animatrix.
A story where a man, just realeased from Matrix, decides to find out the where abouts of the people that he knew in his virtual life (friends, family, etc), and subsequently, free them.
It would be cool to do the same with Fringe.
Sure, everybody steals and they didn’t just start doing it either. lol
I thought that the end shot of the film “Easy Rider” was so cool and unique, until I saw the very same shot at the end of the film “Girl on a Motorcycle”. I’m referring to the last scene with the big explosion on the road and the camera slowly backing up and away from the fire, which gets smaller and smaller the farther away the camera moves. What a rip off!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0950759/
Yuen Woo Ping is the man behind most of the action in the Matrix.. He’s also a major player in Hong Kong media… Jet Li films… He is also Jacky Chan’s senior in his training school.
The series, “Everything is a remix,” is a much more sound exploration of this concept than the Wilson & Closkey version shown here.
At best what is being shown in this video is, as one poster (Mark) put it, tropes.
At worst it seems to fail to understand the concept of the ‘kata’, or ‘forms’, behind martial arts training in general.
And, yes, the fight scenes in The Matrix are not a specific martial art (although it is heavily influenced by Wushu), but is the choreography of Yuen Woo Ping, as Va noted here.
So, really what you’re seeing in this video are neither tropes nor a remix, rather a series of long established–and, in some instances very, very old–martial arts katas or forms.
The purpose of katas in martial arts is identical to the repetitive training in the miltary combat arms: namely to make some necessary actions second-nature in the practitioner…thus, at least in regards to the combat arms (i.e. infantry), saving you–and your fire-team partner and possibly platoons–skins.
Less hyperbolically, such repetition increases the odds of survival in a combat situation. Likewise, although the consequences are less dire (on the whole), kata train the combatant to perform certain action as second nature while fighting.
So, seeing repetition in movies mimicking–however poorly or well–martial arts fight scenes is, again, to be expected. It is NOT evidence of ‘remix’.
Even in the non-martial arts fighting scenes in a film–the acrobatic and choreographed moves–you will see a type of form. But this is simply a limitation of what is going on in the scene: namely fighting.
Of course, both acrobatics and dancing are comprised of kata-like movements; that is to say dance or acrobatic moves.
In break-dancing, for example, you have ‘top-rocks’, ‘freezes’, ‘power moves’ and so on.
In gymnastics, regarding ‘flips’, you have the ‘aerial’, ‘pike’, ‘tuck’, and ‘layout’.
Therefore, to see similarities is not surprising or evidence of a ‘remix’, rather it is to be expected. And, that there are basic moves (forms, katas, whatever) is not evidence of even repetition or uniformity because it is the combination, styles, and so on that make the end result creative.
When you see the affectations that the actors add to the fighting scenes–like Bruce Lee touching then licking his wounds–there is a more reasonable possibility of finding a trope.
However, this video does not highlight or focus on this aspect–it merely includes a few. Ironically, at least in a few instances, it does so rather poorly. For example, the licking of the blood and neck cracking scenes attributed in the video to Jet Li actually come from Bruce Lee (and, no doubt, could be discovered elsewhere and previously to even Lee).
Again, I do enjoy the ‘Remix is everything’ project, but the Wilson & Closkey video not only does not really contribute to the project, but it detracts from it, IMNSHO
I’d also suggest that the ‘remix is everything’ is hardly new even when applied to motion picture (in what ever variation). One of the major endeavours of literary criticism has always been to look for such tropes. In theology this would be referred to as seeking typologies.
In the motion picture milieu this is the mainstay interest in inter-textuality. Compare, for example, Kurosawa to Leone (or, for that matter, Kurosawa an Shakespeare).
As much as I DO enjoy the ‘remix is everything’ series, and I am looking forward to the fourth instalment, there is nothing new in approach here.
Cheers,
Will
Loved this, and it reminded me of “The Critics” commentary track on the Matrix DVD, where the critics agreed the first film works almost like an encyclopedia or catalog of film tropes–be they visual ones as referenced in this video or the narrative ones alluded to in the credits.
Also, it sort of makes sense in terms of the “world” of The Matrix, as the computers must be creating their fictional world from our… well, fictional world. The resources they would have would be historical documents and stories–films, video games, TV shows–so it seems inevitable the Matrix would be a mishmash of allusions.
Now, how about taking on Synecdoche, New York, where Philip Seymour Hoffman remixes his life?
加油，不错的博客！
Hi Kirby,
I think your videos are awesome, Congratulations for such achievement. I just want to contribute with my opinion(my two cents).
I kept waiting for you to mention William Gibson in the video since he made first novel(NEUROMANCER) in which he describes this type of virtual society, in fact, Ghost in The Shell was also based on this novel too. Furthermore Gibson was the one who made genre of sci-fi called Cyberpunk.
Maybe someone already told you about this but I would like to know your opinion about it(maybe don’t know something).
keep up the good work. I will gladly support ‘This is not a conspiracy theory’ series(can’t wait for them).
-Wintermute