The Matrix

Corrected entry: When Neo throws up blood in the Matrix during the fight scene between him and Agent Smith, Neo also coughs up blood in the real world. Trinity says something like "He's killing him." and tears a piece of her shirt off to wipe away the blood on his mouth. Look carefully at Neo's mouth while she is doing this. Funny how there's no blood there.

Correction: The shot that shows that Neo is spitting blood in the real world shows that most of the blood is still in his mouth, and there are only a few drops on his lips. As Trinity wipes up the blood, the angle of the lighting hides these few drops.

Phoenix

Corrected entry: When Neo surprises Cypher, he can't read the code, and Cypher says "I don't even see the code any more" indicating that he took time to learn it. Since they can download vast amounts of information (combat techniques, chopper piloting, ...) directly into the brain, why don't they make a disk to learn the Matrix code?

Correction: There may be a disk, but, as we saw with Neo's 'training', Tank elected to bypass the operational stuff in favour of the combat training.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Just after Neo puts his glasses on at the end there are several shots from above. If you look closely (pausing of DVD probably best) you see that the shadows change drastically in the last high up shot. The street corner has many shadows in the first couple of shots then in the first high up shot the whole street is in sunlight with no shadows anywhere. (02:03:50)

Correction: The shadows never change. In the second bird's-eye shot, you can see a shadow on the street behind Neo. If you keep watching the same street, you can see that the shadow remains unchanged through every shot, just like all the surrounding shadows. The angle of sunlight also remains the same.

Corrected entry: When Morpheus and Neo is in the "Agent Training Program", they were walking in a crowded city. Notice that you will see that almost every pedestrians walking in the street show up twice. This is obvious when the agent pulls out his gun and the scene paused. You will see the same person with bald head just below Neo.

Correction: This was done deliberately - many sets of twins and triplets were cast as extras for these scenes. It's to emphasise that the whole thing is a program, which has only limited creativity.

STP

Corrected entry: During the scene with Neo firing the mini-gun you can see both the empty cases and the disintegrating chain for holding the bullets falling down in the shot from behind his feet. However, when the shot changes to under the helicopter, none of the dark grey links are falling, only the cases. (01:44:00)

Correction: Using frame-by-frame you can see that the little grey links ARE falling with the cases in the shot taken underneath the helicopter.

Jez

Corrected entry: When Neo and Trinity rescue Morpheus there is a massive amount of water coming out of the window. Surely if the window wasn't blown out the water would just flood the level if there was actually a fire. There is way too much water to be there from the time when the sprinklers started to when Morpheus jumps out.

Correction: Having heard from my father (and then subsequently seeing for myself) sprinkler systems, especially the kind that would be in an office block like that, are incredibly powerful, far more powerful than they look. The water level in the rooms is probably about right. The sprinkler system designers aren't worried about drowning people, because if the sprinklers go off, you're supposed to get out of there right away. And a possible drowning is a more acceptable risk than a definite burning of a tower block full of people.

Gary O'Reilly

Corrected entry: When they are discovered in the wet wall why not just slide down then? As they are attempting a getaway this would be the way to do it and as they've been discovered they don't need to be quiet anymore.

Correction: Because the rebel's knew that if they didn't try to take care of the SWAT member he would eventually turn into an Agent, this is why they open fire on him, when the SWAT member quits firing, Neo listens to hear if the member is still out there or dead, in that instant, Agen Smith appears and Morpheous deals with him so they won't have Smith following him down the wet wall.

Corrected entry: Smith mention that viruses are organisms, viruses aren't really organisms.

Correction: Human science has determined that viruses aren't organisms primarily because they do not perform all of the life functions that all animals and plants are supposed to have to be classified as "alive." For example, viruses do not have any systems for taking in air or food, so few call a virus "alive." However, by the analysis of a race of machines who certainly consider themselves "alive" to some extent (if they are willing to go to war for their "rights"), and they also have no such systems for respiration, they may not come to the same conclusion that humans have. The machines may have determined that the rules for classification as an "organism" is broader than humans believed during their time.

Corrected entry: When the silver substance from the mirror begins to creep up Neo's arm as he's preparing to be "awakened," it's moving at a controlled, regular speed. Once it goes underneath his shirt it speeds up—if you compare it to the normal rate the stuff is moving you'll see it should have taken more than a second—but is back to normal when you next see it going up his neck.

Correction: Where is the mistake here?. Is there rule about liquid mirrors inside the Matrix that says it has to move at a constant rate?

Corrected entry: How can Cypher be in the matrix making the deal with Agent Smith if the Nebuchadnezzar is in hiding from the sentinels and out of "broadcast depth" as Morpheus says in the next scene when they're all eating in the room. That's when Morpheus tells Dozer to bring the Nebuchadnezzar back to broadcast depth to go see the Oracle after Cypher makes the deal. I doubt Cypher could drive the ship without everyone waking up.

Correction: The assumption here is that we know how much time has elapsed between the scenes, but we don't. Leaving out mundane scenes like days of travelling is commonly used to make movies fit into a three hour period and be interesting.

Corrected entry: After Neo comes back to life in the hallway, the agents start shooting him at the same time. That also includes Agent Smith, who had a empty gun after killing Neo with his bullets. He never had a chance to reload, and he only had one gun.

Correction: This mistake would have some credibility if the camera stayed on Agent Smith the whole time, but shots change multiple times, giving Smith time to reload. In the Reloaded chase scene an agent shooting a Trinity starts to reload his magazine immediately after it was empty, and we would expect Agent Smith, or any other rational person, to do the same.

Corrected entry: How can people possibly know what they look like (their 'residual self image') if they have never actually opened their eyes? It must be a pretty big coincidence that each of the characters look identical in both the Matrix and the real world.

Correction: The humans obviously remember things that happened to them in the Matrix, 'I used to eat there' so they have seen themselves in the Matrix in mirrors, etc. and if the machines made every person look like they did in when they were born (somehow) then they would look the same in both 'worlds'.

Corrected entry: When Neo and Trinity are on top of the lift, Neo shoots the cable so it will fall down and blow up, and both of them would be lifted up by the counterweight which normally supports the lift. Lifts have brakes so that they can't fall, even if the support wire's cut. Neo only shoots the cable, he doesn't break the brakes, so why does the lift fall? (01:40:50)

Correction: In an earlier scene (the famous "there is no spoon" scene), Neo bends a metal object. When he is on the lift he again says "there is no spoon" because he is trying to stop the lift brakes from working in the same way he bent that spoon.

Corrected entry: When Morpehus takes Neo into the Agent training program, and everything pauses, the reflection in Morpheus' sunglasses only shows Neo and the paused agent, but nothing else, only blackness. (00:55:41)

Correction: I don't think this is a continuity problem. Because they are not actually in the Matrix, Morpheus' glasses are only reflecting what is important. Very subtle, but not a mistake.

Corrected entry: In the Oracle's apartment, when the child picks up the spoon, the convex side is facing Neo. As he hands the spoon over, the concave side of the spoon is facing Neo. (01:11:34)

Correction: That's because he looks at the spoon while it's lying in both of his hands then holds it up again. When he does that, he turns the spoon...

Correction: The name Morpheus comes indeed from Greek mythology but it doesn't mean anything. Morpheus was the god of Dreams, son of Hypnos (Sleep) and nephew of Thanatos (Death). He represents the features and the speech of men in dreams.

Corrected entry: When the chopper is idling outside the building and Morpheus is now all alone, trying to break the cuffs, the Agents are two rooms over. They still have a clear shot from that room, and Neo is still pointed at the first room. Why doesn't one of them shoot at the chopper at that point? Clear shot at Neo or the gas tank, which prevents Morpheus's getaway in the first place. (01:48:57)

Correction: The agents wouldn't have a clear shot out that window unless they broke it. You can't see the helicopter or Neo out of that window.

Corrected entry: In the lobby scene right before Neo and Trinity enter the lift, the gun of the last guard Neo kills is made of rubber. When his gun hits the floor you can see the gun bounce and the tip of the gun bends when it hits the floor then straightens again.

Correction: This is actually a trick of slow motion and the actual motion of the gun, kind of like when you flop a pencil between two fingers and it appears to "bend". The gun was a real metal gun, but a prop. When dropped, it appeared to bend, and did bounce. I viewed this scene over and over and you can tell it is a metal gun, which would also bounce if dropped.

Corrected entry: When Neo's computer is typing "Wake up Neo...", there is a click for each letter. When he looks at the screen to read it, you can hear 3 more clicks.

Correction: The three extra keyboard strokes are for the periods "...".

Corrected entry: Revolving bullet-time scene with Neo and Agent Smith in the train station. Note the speed they are turning and that of the bullets leaving the gun is identical. This would imply when played in 'real-time' they are moving at the same velocity of the bullets. The bullets should (obviously) be moving at a faster speed.

Paul Andrews

Correction: But they aren't spinning, only our view of the shot is rotating.

Scrappy

The Matrix mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Neo is going to open the door to enter the Oracle's house, you can clearly see a camera on the doorknob. There's a sheet over it painted to look like the wall behind it, with a representation of Morpheus' tie too, because he's blocked by the camera. (01:07:40)

More mistakes in The Matrix

Morpheus: You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

More quotes from The Matrix

Trivia: It's been said that Neo is an anagram for "one". I think it's more important to realise that Neo means "new". His real name is Thomas Anderson. He is called Thomas at the beginning of the movie, when he doubts the truth -- that the world as he knows it is not real. Thomas is the "doubting" disciple in the Bible. Moreover, Anderson means "son of man". Hence, Neo Anderson is the New Son of Man. The biblical references go on and on... Trinity, Nebucadnezzar (the name of the ship -- in fact, the name plate on the ship makes reference to a verse in Mark chapter 3), Zion... So not only is Neo "the One", he has gone from being the doubter to the new son of man.

More trivia for The Matrix

Question: How did Neo know about the existence of the Matrix if he was stuck in the Matrix for most of his life?

Answer: He doesn't know that he's plugged into a giant computer and that most of humanity is a power source for robots. He's merely aware that there is something wrong with life in general, something odd that he can't quite explain.

Gary O'Reilly

More questions & answers from The Matrix

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