The Matrix

Factual error: When Agent Brown shoots at Neo on the skyscraper, the last shot scrapes Neo in the knee and on his shoulder. This would cause both shots to be vertical when standing up. However, when Neo stands up and indicates to the scrape, the shoulder scrape is horizontal - not possible given the trajectory Agent Brown is firing from. (01:46:30)

Continuity mistake: During the rooftop scene check out the tiling situation. When Neo takes two bullets, he falls to the ground. He lies mainly inside one tile, even the left gun fits in. (And it's on a vertical line) His top hand lies just on the line. Now, watch again when the agent is dead. All of the sudden he's in-between two tiles, and the gun is now on a horizontal line, but not a vertical. (01:46:36)

Continuity mistake: When Agent Smith is seen the first time, he is talking to the old cop outside, then begins to walk away and the other agent follows. The cop turns his head to continue to look at the other agent when he is walking away or past him, yet in the following shot the cop has his head turned, but the other agent is still in sight and is just barely walking past him. (00:02:35)

The-Immortal

The Matrix mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the film, when Neo is having the conversation with his boss about his arrival time at the office, when the camera is on Neo, his hands are behind his back, when the is on his boss (showing Neo's back), Neo's hands are in front of him. They're all instant cuts - no time for him to move. (00:11:35)

The Matrix mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the helicopter smashes into the building and Neo saves Trinity, they look at each other and you can see smoke from the building. After that, Morpheus is talking to Neo. You can see several shots of him and Neo talking and behind them, the building and its windows are still intact. (01:46:50)

Continuity mistake: Near the start, when Agent Smith jumps over the building and the police officer in the front says, "It's impossible," look closely in the background when the agent lands. You can see it's a different officer than the one that said it.

Continuity mistake: Near the middle of the film when Morpheus directs Tank to load the Jump Program note where Morpheus and Neo land on roof of building. Aerial view shows them landing some distance from the building but when the camera cuts to the first close up they are standing right next to the building. (00:51:30)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: When on the roof, Neo fires at the enemy agent, who dodges all his bullets, but the windows of the building behind him are undamaged. (01:45:36)

Continuity mistake: When Neo and Morpheus are going to see the Oracle, they approach the elevator. Neo is standing on the right and Morpheus is standing on the left. Yet when they enter the elevator, Morpheus and Neo both come from the right.

AidanN

Continuity mistake: During the fight scene in the train station between Agent Smith and Neo, after a lot of fighting Neo is thrown back and throws up blood. He then gets up and wipes it off with the back of his hand. Straight after that, it isn't visible anymore. It's completely vanished. (01:56:30)

Other mistake: When Neo shoots with the chopper's machine gun the window smashes from a single point in the middle, shattering two panes. Water then starts splashing up from bullet impacts right at the base of the window, but the glass doesn't smash anywhere around there - it could only work like that if Neo was shooting down at an incredibly sharp angle, which he obviously isn't. (01:43:20)

Continuity mistake: In the lobby scene, after the SWAT team has entered, one of the SWAT guys charges, firing his M16 at Trinity. After she kicks him while he's putting in a new clip, his right hand's empty in the close up, but is holding the M16 (which he then drops) in the wider shot. (01:38:20)

Continuity mistake: At the first chase scene between Trinity and the agent on the roof, just after the agent shoots at Trinity, she runs off, here you can see the agent coming into view by the chimney, and in the following shot he is coming into view again. (00:04:20)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film we see Neo in the chopper firing the mini gun through the window at the agents. In one particular shot note the metal chair pulled out from the desk which falls over after being shot at, then a few shots later is suddenly back upright again. (01:43:30)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: Near the middle of the film when we see Morpheus and Neo have entered the Matrix in a scene that begins at a city intersection with a "Walk/Don't Walk" Traffic Sign. Just as the cross the street, Morpheus is speaking to Neo, the next shot looks over Neo's shoulder back towards the intersection, it is no longer visible, as though they have traveled farther down the block than physically possible in the time allotted. (00:54:15)

The-Immortal

Revealing mistake: When Neo breaks free from the goo-pod and slides down the tunnel into the sewer, he falls into the 'lake'. But if you look close you can see that when he falls he's wearing a nappy of sorts, covering his modesty. (00:33:00)

don_corleone

Continuity mistake: 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. (00:06:40)

Factual error: In the subway scene, Trinity answers the phone, and the hobo becomes agent Smith. Smith shoots at Trinity, but the bullet hits the phone, which explodes to the right. Considering the bullets direction, the phone should explode to the left. (01:54:05)

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we...are the cure. (01:02:20)

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.

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Question: I get that people in the matrix, who have not been freed, are not ready to be freed, and I know at one point when Morpheus is explaining the matrix to Neo (I believe during the woman in the red dress test) he says something along the lines of: The matrix is a system, that system is our enemy. The matrix is filled with minds we are trying to save, but until we do they are still part of that system and that makes them our enemies. Many of them are so dependent on that system they will fight to defend it.- I am paraphrasing, but it is something like that. As I'm sure everyone knows he also says "The body cannot live without the mind." And therefore if you die in the matrix you die in the 'real' world. My question is, do they ever address the ethical questions that could arise from the fact that they kill mind after mind of police officers, SWAT teams, security guards, innocent humans just doing their jobs? I understand that sometimes it may be necessary, and that Neo doesn't have much choice but to fight agents and kill their hosts at times. But things like Mouse, knowing he is going to die so he grabs machine guns and takes out as many people as he can. Or when Neo and Trinity, on their way to save Morpheus, cover them selves in guns and take out that whole building of guards and pretty much end up with one gun each. The guards were completely prepared to let them enter the building freely if they passed the metal detector, could they not have went empty handed and just taken out two guards later, and used their weapons? It just seems like a pretty bad way to go about a mission to save people. Unless perhaps I missed a speech about sacrificing some minds for the cause or the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few type deal. Just wondering if that is ever addressed.

six56

Chosen answer: No, they don't address it, other than Morpheus' speech during the test. It's not something that they have any realistic choice about, so they just have to accept it and do what they need to do. Mouse, yes, he chooses to defend himself when cornered, but who wouldn't? These may be innocent victims of the Matrix he's shooting at, but they're still there to kill him - he's hardly going to stand there and accept his fate meekly. There's also no indication that the guards were "completely prepared" to let Neo and Trinity into what's clearly a high security building, undoubtedly they would have been asked for identification, what their purpose was there and so forth and turned away if, as seems likely, their answers weren't satisfactory. Shooting their way in from the start is likely their only option. Yes, it's absolutely ethically unfortunate, but if they're going to resist the machines successfully, it's not something they have any choice about. A necessary evil.

Tailkinker

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