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The Matrix: Édition Noir et Néon (WIP)

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 (Edited)

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I’ve started work on this edit while Scott Pilgrim is pending Academy approval, so as to have a proof-of-concept ready to début alongside that edit. It will involve far more advanced FX and colour-grading work than Scott Pilgrim did, although not perhaps as demanding as The Hobbit is going to end up requiring, because I’m going for a stylised look for this one. Although I’ll only be working in HD, I waited for the new 4K transfer of the film to be available to work from, and I’m glad I did, because the new transfer is beautiful (and omits the retconned later colour grading most versions have).

Editing-wise, it’s intended to be fairly conservative, bringing the parables of self-discovery and self-actualisation in the original to the fore, and backgrounding the man-versus-machine angle. I’m guided in part by Marcy Cook’s excellent analysis here.

I do plan to include a change, based on what was apparently the Wachowskis’ original intention, to depict the plugged-in humans as having their brains used for computing power rather than their body heat used for electrical power. To this end, the second half of the “Desert of the Real” sequence will need to be more or less replaced wholesale. Most of the trimming I’m going to do, though, will be from the “real-world” scenes around the middle of the film.

I would also like, if I possibly can, to hint that the Machines did not have their origin in a robot rebellion (although the characters still believe so), but that a cabal of humans built both the Matrix and the Machines, and may still be around and running the show for their own benefit. If I decide this idea is tenable, whether it ends up making the cut in this one or not, I have some further ideas for assembling a much more radical (single-film) sequel edit to explore it, in which, for example, the Merovingian isn’t a program but one of these rulers.

The main focus of the edit, though, as suggested by the name, is stylistic. The original film is heavily noir-influenced, of course, among many other things, and many scenes set inside the Matrix are virtually monochrome already; anything brightly coloured (the woman in red, the coloured pills) deliberately stands out. So I intend to render the scenes set inside the simulated world in high-contrast black and white, and regrade “real-world” scenes to contrast with this — removing the (thankfully already dialled-down in the new transfer) blue tint and emulating the classic Technicolor look. A handful of plot-important objects which exist specifically to alter the Matrix itself (the aforementioned pills, the red dress, the green phosphor of Neo’s computer monitor) will remain coloured.

However, it isn’t as simple as dropping the saturation and upping the contrast, or even dropping in a LUT and tweaking a few settings, as (inspired in part by the original Tron) many light sources within the simulated world — computer screens, neon signs, traffic lights — will be coloured, and will colour their otherwise black-and-white surrounds accordingly. I’ve also found, in doing the proof-of-concept, that outdoor and indoor scenes require a very different grading approach to look “right” in B&W.

The other element I’ll be having some stylistic fun with is the music. The Matrix is blessed with a mostly clean centre channel, and to go with the Tronesque aesthetic I’m planning to replace several music cues. Thus far, I have in mind a couple of tracks from Muse’s latest album, Simulation Theory, which explicitly deals with the same themes as the movie:

  • “Algorithm” (Alternate Reality Version), for the opening titles, if I can get hold of an instrumental version.
  • “The Dark Side” as a theme for Trinity, first playing in the fetish club and then (in its alternate reality version) replacing the score at a couple of points near the end of the movie.

A few other retro electronic/synthy pieces I’ve considered:

  • “On the Run”, Pink Floyd’s pioneering electronic piece, for the rooftop chase in the prologue (as heard in the proof-of-concept).
  • “Afterlife”, a microtonal piece by Wendy Carlos, for Neo’s awakening and rescue.
  • “Speedboat Night Sweat”, by the delightfully retro synthwave group Swimware, probably to replace “Prime Audio Soup”.

There are several other spots where I want to replace the music, but don’t have any particular piece in mind yet, and am open to suggestions. They’re all good pieces, and their use in the original movie was iconic, but for this alternative version I want to feature a different type of music — think more synthwave than industrial EDM. These are the pieces I’d primarily be looking to replace:

  • “Dissolved Girl” (playing on Neo’s headphones when we first see him)
  • “Clubbed to Death” (the Woman in Red scene)
  • “Prime Audio Soup” (going to see the Oracle)
  • “Spybreak!” (the lobby shootout)
  • “Rock is Dead” (end credits)

I feel that the use of Rage Against the Machine is too awesome to delete, although if I come across something that fits the end of the movie as well as “Wake Up” does, I’m not completely averse to replacing it. I’m undecided about keeping the BGM in the dojo sparring scene, but I’m probably similarly happy to keep it unless something even more appropriate shows up.

So that’ll be fun. I’ll be working on this and The Hobbit in tandem for the next little while, but at this rate, this one will probably come out first. Proof of concept is ready to go and will come out alongside Scott Pilgrim.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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This sounds excellent, I’m looking really forward to this.

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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This looks like it’s going to be amazing! The noir style will fit well with this movie

The user formerly known as “Trillary Dump” (it was the 2016 election…)

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The Woman in Red

Despite what I said in the first post, I’ve found something perfect to replace “Wake Up” in the end titles: “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me”, by the Mute Gods.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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Sounds great in theory. Any progress on this?

I have to admit I’m not a fan of the picture with the lady in red, the contrast seems too extreme to me, although high contrast in general ofc isn’t a problem, but here a lot of highlights are blown out, and, to be honest, the red + black and white look is kind of an overused cliche at this point.

Just my 2 cents.

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Sounds fascinating. Good luck with this edit. I’ll check it out for sure.

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So I’ve got a rough playlist of music to try out. I won’t just be replacing the featured pieces; I’m considering pieces where to replace the existing score in places too.

  • “On the Run”, by Pink Floyd, for the rooftop chase, as mentioned
  • “Mammagamma”, by the Alan Parsons Project, to replace “Dissolved Girl”
  • “The Dark Side”, by Muse, in the fetish club
  • “Zer0 Gravity”, by Code Elektro, for the car ride to meet Morpheus
  • “Afterlife”, by Wendy Carlos, for Neo’s awakening in the Real World
  • “Escape from Midwich Valley”, by Carpenter Brut, to replace “Clubbed to Death”
  • “Speedboat Night Sweat”, by Swimware, to replace “Prime Audio Soup”
  • “Torment (Interlude)”, by Alex feat. Tokyo Rose, for Morpheus’ interrogation
  • “Adrenaline Burst”, by Midnight Danger, to replace “Spybreak!”
  • “The Dark Side (Alternate Reality Version)”, for Neo’s resurrection as the One
  • “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me”, by the Mute Gods, for the last scene and end credits.

All of the above are on Spotify, so you can have a listen to this playlist and let me know what you think.

Some of them seem to work extraordinarily well. “The Dark Side” has repeated chords at the end that can blend very well into Neo’s alarm clock, similar to the original. “Adrenaline Burst” is in the same key as “Torment (Interlude)”, and based around a very similar riff, so follows it very organically. I haven’t tried them all out in terms of syncing to picture yet, but I have high hopes. None have key or tempo changes of the kind that would make cutting them up to fit a problem.

On the other hand, I probably won’t be using “Algorithm” in the movie itself. It’s a brilliant song and very fitting, but too much of a show-stopper. It already sounds like trailer music, so I just might use it as that.

As for actual edits, to the film, here’s what I have in mind so far:

  • Moving Morpheus’ line “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself,” to later, after the first scene in the Construct, when he comes to apologise to Neo in his bunk. The idea could be either that it’s impossible to tell the truth inside the Matrix without the Agents finding you, or that the Matrix itself prevents the mind from accepting it. Either way, I prefer it to the idea that they only free kids, and it makes Morpheus’ initial dramatic vagueness more explicable.
  • Altering the first Construct scene to depict the Machines as using human brains for computing.
  • Deleting Cypher’s dinner date with Smith. He explains his motives adequately during his Bond-villain monologue, so we don’t need to flag it in advance.
  • Moving the scene where Cypher and Neo share a drink to earlier, before Neo’s training.
  • Removing most or all exterior shots of the Nebuchadnezzar and Sentinels. The effects haven’t aged too badly, and the grading I’m doing doesn’t hurt in that regard, but it ought to make the Real World segments feel more claustrophobic, especially at the end when the Sentinels find them.
  • Deleting Smith exploding. I know it’s kind of an odd choice, but it comes out of nowhere (unlike the rest of that scene, which is all heavily foreshadowed) and the effect has not aged well. I like the idea of the Agents all just running away at the end, and if I do end up doing a sequel edit, it avoids the problem that his second death is basically just his first multiplied by several hundred.
  • Trimming a few pieces of redundant or “prompting” dialogue here and there.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. I haven’t started the cutting process yet, and more edits will no doubt suggest themselves, but I thought I’d give you an update on where things are at, while we wait for Scott Pilgrim.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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You are tweaking my favorite movie since I was 11 years old. Please, send me anything you consider worth sharing.

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RoccondilRinon said:

Well, that’s not intimidating at all. XD

It wasn’t!! I am a HUGE Matrix nerd, and I am really eager to see what comes out of this, it sounds promising 😄

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Welp, I didn’t realise that I’d neglected to link the proof of concept in this thread — I put it up on the corresponding thread on fanedit.org (with a temp sound mix) a little while ago. Still working on the editorial and sound side of things, but the colour grading is pretty much done. If anyone can volunteer a decent Laurence Fishburne impression, that could be useful.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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I’ve been thinking about the dialogue replacement for Morpheus’ D-battery speech, and I’ve got a draft I’d like some feedback on. Again, if anybody (knows anybody who) would like to volunteer a Laurence Fishburne impression for the scene, let me know; I could probably get the accent and delivery down, but I don’t think my voice itself would be at all suitable.

Original version:

The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery, and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the Machines had found all the energy they would ever need.

What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream-world, built to keep us under control, in order to change a human being… [he holds up a D battery] …into this.

Altered version:

A single human brain cell has thousands of parts, and is as complex as an entire computer. You have a hundred billion of them in your head, all running on less energy than it takes to power a lightbulb. The Machines found a way to harness that endlessly renewable processing power for their own ends. All they needed was a way to keep us from waking up to it.

What is the Matrix? Control. Sufficiently advanced computation inevitably requires consciousness. Even while we sleep, the mind is constantly self-aware in our dreams. But without an external subject to refer to, the mind enters an endless feedback loop and crashes. The Matrix is an outlet valve for our consciousness: a computer-generated dream-world, built to keep us under control, in order to change a human being… [He holds up a pocket calculator] …into this.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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Hey RoccondilRinon

So I was thinking if you’re trying to match dialogue duration to existing footage, the altered text you’ve drafted may be a bit wordy…and perhaps contains too much exposition. Taking the simplicity of the original text, and the new context of your altered draft, would something like this work:

The human brain is more powerful than any computer ever built by man or Machine. Unable to replicate the complex network of a billion firing neurons, the Machines, in time, found a way to harness the near limitless processing power of our conscious minds…

What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream-world, built to keep our sleeping consciousness under control, in order to change a human being… [holds up a pocket calculator] …into this.

Does this cover what you’re trying to convey?

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I actually intend to use some additional animation at that point, so the timing isn’t so much of a concern.

But I like your version! It’s closer in style to the rest of the scene than mine, I feel. I’ll definitely keep it in mind when redrafting. Thanks!

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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you’re welcome, glad I could be of some help!
are you thinking of other dialogue changes in your edit?
and the additional animation you mention, likely to be your own original work, or cut from other official Matrix sources?

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From elsewhere, actually. I am changing some dialogue elsewhere, but mainly just moving existing lines around. Specifically, “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself,” is moved later, to the scene where Morpheus tells Neo about the One.

The Hobbit: Roadshow Edition

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Sounds good
Looking forward to hearing more as the edit progresses!

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 (Edited)

I take it based on the Merovigian comment that you’re doing all three films?

In terms of music, have you considered Sayonara Wild Hearts? I don’t know if it’s the type of music you’re looking for, but you can check it out. It’s very current though (aside from thankfully not having any hip hop).

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Almost a year since the last post.
Still interested in this one.

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Another year, another bump.
Any progress?

Ooh, RoccondilRinon last visited months ago.
Hope you are well.