As part of GODHAND rewrite homework I convinced myself to re-watch The Matrix yesterday. It's a staggering work on a technical level, but it manages not only to be a surface level cyber-fu but also a dystopian wake-up call AND a trans-allegory, with nary a frame wasted.

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I had fun catching some details that I've never noticed before or only paid cursory attention to. I'm sure these are well known by many, but the cool things I caught, in no particular order:

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Remember the TV set where Morpheus shows Neo the "real world"?

Turns out, it's a Radiola "Deep Image" Model 209C from AWA (Amalgamated Wireless - Australasia).

Why is this cool?

AWA is an Aussie company. They have a white tower that was once the tallest building in Sydney.

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It shows up later, during the rescue of Morpheus. The flyover of Sydney features a nice shot of the tower and its big letters.

Every shot in this is a work of art, but the Wachowskis are also incredibly smart filmmakers. They pack each frame with literary meaning & metaphor.

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So what's the significance of the AWA letters? I believe the Wachowskis deliberately are retrofitting this sequence of letters as a storytelling signal.

You may or may not recall the hotel in the opening scene and then at the end where Neo realizes he's the One.

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Why is this hotel important? It's the Heart O' the City (so many metaphors!) in which there's a hard line for redpills to escape the Matrix. What room is that hardline?

That's right. Room 303.

It's where we first meet Trinity, and later where Agent Smith ambushes Neo.

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3-0-3 has the same pattern as A-W-A. It also has the same pattern as 1-0-1, which is the number of the apartment Thomas Anderson lives in within the Matrix.

(Regarding that, you might say he's enrolled in the "Hacking 101" course before he gets properly educated.)

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The AWA building also has Masonic connections w/in the Hermitic tradition, which may or may not have factored into the Wachowskis' decision to make it a focal point in a climactic moment of the film.

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Another cool detail: Remember the opening shot as it goes through the numbers?

Notice the striated light ridges of the Matrix code at an electron level?

Looks an awful lot like when Cypher betrays their location and they have to go inside the walls to hide from the Agents.

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Oh, and this small detail probably everyone knows, but I only really picked up on yesterday. The rain looks like Matrix code.

I'm an idiot, I know.

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The book in Thomas Anderson's apartment where he keeps all his hacker discs and cash is entitled Simulacra and Simulation, by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard.

Simulacra and Simulation explains how a modern "system of control" comes into being and sustains itself.

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What'll really bake your noodle is why'd the Machines allow a book like that inside the Matrix?

Baudrillard said he declined an offer to write the sequels; he felt Disneyland was a better illustration of his theory about the simulated nature of contemporary reality. FWIW.

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Interesting that the Jujitsu training program disc looks similar to the disc that Thomas Anderson hands Mescaline Guy outside his apartment.

Maybe not that interesting.

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Remember the Agent Training program and the Woman in the Red Dress? That scene has loads of twins in it. Which is pretty cool. You only get a really good glimpse when they go wide with it. But you do see a load of black-suited automatons, including nuns and sailors.

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ACAB?

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Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier.

You ever noticed the Kung-Fu sign below the Heart O' the City hotel in the very beginning?

Top left of the screen, red sign, white letters. KUNG-FU.

Those Wachowskis....

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This guy appears outside the Oracle's apartment. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but... Morpheus wears mirrored sunglasses, this guy is blind. He & Morphus recognize each other. They exude Zen-like calm.

The ancient seer Morpheus will become (he's already on the path).

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Notice the A-W-A / 1-0-1 / 3-0-3 pattern again appears with the seats.

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And more patterns, this time inside the Oracle's apartment.

I'd argue the beads at the kitchen entrance form a kind of 1-0-1 pattern, with Neo in the middle. Also temple-like entrance.

Am I pattern-finding? Or pattern-matching? W/the Wachowskis, I am never sure.

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Love that Switch is named Switch and is the most blatant evidence of a deeper trans allegory being played with here.

It's so perfect they are wearing white when everyone else wears black.

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More Matrix rain, this time from the windows of the old TV repair shop where Cypher kills Apoc and Switch and threatens to kill Neo.

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More patterns. More Matrix rain. More visual metaphor. Like I said, every frame is packed with meaning.

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Set clean up for new takes must have been INSANE.

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Oops, more patterns.

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This was fun. I hope you'll agree the Wachowskis are a couple of filmmakers totally in control of their vision, who gave us a philosophically rich, metaphor-laden, multi-layered film that works on so many levels, but never, ever fails to entertain us.

Thanks for reading!