Searched the 'Net to no avail and don’t have a home copy so could someone please tell me which book or short story The Matrix was based upon?
I was under the impression that it’s an original work of The Wachowski Brothers. It may be as similar to some short story as Total Recall is to “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, but I don’t think anybody claims it’s based on another story per se. Where did you hear that it was?
If you find out, let me know. I’m dying to know what happens in Revolutions. 
They took Total Recall, Dark City, and eXistenZ and threw them in a blender, then proclaimed it to be something fresh and new :rolleyes:
I can see where you’re coming from with Dark City, but come on. Total Recall? They’re not that similar.
I didn’t see eXistenZ, but it came out the same year as The Matrix. Are you sure the blending wasn’t the other way around?
Actually, now that I look at the release dates, they came out within a month and a half of each other -eXistentZ feb 16th, Matrix mar 31st (and even the Matrix doesn’t feel like it was written and shot in a month) so they probably didn’t influence each other.
I still think it blended Total Recall, Dark City, and an Energizer commericial to make the Matrix, though.
I think The Matrix was probably well into the writing stage at least by the time Dark City came out (06 Aug 2002). That’s only nine months before it was released.
There are also alot of similarities to a Japanese anime film called Ghost in the Shell. It’s actually a bit spooky to see how much the W Brothers lifted from that. (But then again Ghost in the Shell lifts ideas from William Gibson novels.)
The actual concept of the Matrix itself reminded me of a part of The Celestial Locomotive, a fairly obscure and old science fiction novel. A lot of the remnants of humanity were plugged into a virtual world simulation and partied away as semigods while their bodies remained in the real world, naked, hairless and oddly baby-like. More Matrix-like than I make it sound, actually.
It’s doubtful they read it, though. It’s a fairly obscure novel.
You’re normally one of the more rational posters here, so please lie down until this fit goes away.
Dark City came out in 1998. The Matrix came out in 1999.
And anybody who has seen both understands perfectly that the latter ripped off the former. I don’t care how short the time period was between their releases.
The Wachowski Brothers were also allegedly influenced by the Grant Morrison DC comic The Invisibles. I’m currently into it, and I can see at least some superficial similarities between King Mob and Morpheus, Jack Frost and Neo, and the way the Invisibles operate and the way Morpheus’ cyber-commandos operate.
But let’s be fair. I’m not a fan of The Matrix, but I don’t think the Wachoswskis are any more guilty of “ripping off” their inspirations than anybody else. That’s just the way art operates: you start off by taking a bunch of texts (or paintings or songs or whatever) you like–that are the reason you are making art in the first place, actually–and you squash them all together to make something that fits your aesthetic. Along the way, you reinterpret (or, in some cases, misinterpret) your sources and accidentally stumble into your own unique voice. The Matrix is not, to my knowledge, a direct adaptation or ripoff of anything. It has similarities to other movies and books, and if you dig hard enough you can figure out what their inspirations were, but the whole package is fairly well done and original.
Wait a minute, did I just defend The Matrix? I guess that means monkeys will start to fly out of my ass any second now…
It’s not based on a book or short story. It’s based on one college freshman’s experience attending two lectures in a Philosophy 101 class. He spent one of the lectures sleeping.
:rolleyes:
Just because apples and oranges are both fruits, that doesn’t mean that you have any idea what you are talking about. Unless, of course, you’ve heard an interview or some other confirmation from the brothers W where they borrowed ideas for The Matrix from (and since they refuse all interviews, I’ll just assume you’re talking out of your ass).
As big a fan of The Matrix as I am, Dark City is possibly my favorite film. As far as I can tell, there are three big similarities between them that might lead you to this opinion, and I don’t think any of them were critical enough to say that it “ripped off”. If you have others, go ahead and say them; I’d be very interested, because like I said, I love both films.
The first is simply the noiry feel, which can be found in a great deal of earlier films. The second is the humans-in-a-jar idea, in unwitting captivity. While I think that both films executed it very well, it was for very different purposes and anyway, this is hardly a new concept. I hear a lot of people referring to the Cave allegory in The Republic as inspiration for this. The third is the protagonist discovering and executing super powers. But seriously, how many dozens of stories can you think of that have “The Chosen One” or some similar concept?
It’s based on an original screenplay.
With that said, it totally rips off Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy for the philosophical framework, and Ghost in the Shell for aesthetics.
Here is a good comparison.
That is a pretty interesting comparison, and there definitely are strong similarities. The green lettering is a good point, as are the neck plugs. But a few of the things that got a Conspiracy Rating of 8 are pretty weak, IMHO. They both have a truck flip over? They both have a chase scene in a crowded area? They both end with a panorama of the city? :rolleyes:
While I in no way believe that The Matrix is a direct rip-off of Dark City (or any other work, for that matter), it seems to me that the prime similarity is the whole bit about “reality is not what it appears to be”. Or is that what you meant by “humans in a jar”?
Now, if the Matrix got rebooted every night, and everyone’s memories got reset, then that would be a ripoff of Dark City. Either that, or a ripoff of the much earlier short story “The Tunnel under the World”.
But even if it were a ripoff, so what? I mean, if Shakespeare wrote more than three original works, it’s news to me (and I’m stretching to even think of three).
There’s a shitload of William Gibson’s Neuromancer in The Matrix, from a worldwide network (ironically also called the matrix) where the protagonists are semi-gods, to a scruffy, hidden ‘underworld’ named Zion (also populated by Jamacian/African peoples), to a crazy old coot at the very top of the chain (The Architect in The Matrix, the Tessier-Ashpool codger in Neuromancer)
Hell, we could argue the Trinity is Molly, though a hell of a lot dumber. Morpheus strikes me as an Armitage type. Cypher is Riviera, Agent Smith is Wintermute…
Hmmm. Are we sure The Matrix isn’t based on anything?
rmbnxs, that’s the best summary of The Matrix I’ve ever read! 
The Matrix is based on a zillion “Is reality real?” science fiction books and stories over the years. I’ll just toss out Phillip K. Dick’s Ubik (1969) and Stanislaus Lem’s The Futurological Congress (1971) as examples.
In the world of science fiction, this is well-trodden territory, especially since the rise of cyberpunk in the 80s. I dare say you could come up with hundreds of “people are in a computer simulation they think is reality” stories written before the Matrix came out. Of course, most of the public doesn’t read science fiction or stay awake during their Philosophy 101 classes, which is why The Matrix seemed somewhat novel at the time.
People always mention Dark City as a precursor to The Matrix, but for some reason they never mention another, more popular movie about a man who discovers his reality isn’t real – namely The Truman Show (1998). But of course it doesn’t have guns or explosions in it, so it doesn’t count.
People don’t mention The Truman Show - one of the few truly excellent science fiction movies - as a precursor to The Matrix because ideas by themselves are not meaningful as indicators. Dark City has the exact look and feel of The Matrix a year before that movie came out. It’s that similarity of look and feel - far more important in movies than in stories - that makes The Matrix feel so derivative.
And Achernar you had Dark City coming out in 2002. That was my point.
Chronos, the originality is overrated argument has come up on these boards before so there is no reason to rehash it here, except to note that I am on the side that says infusing the new, fresh, and different into the basic existing plots and characters is the true basis of originality.
What does horrify me is the touchiness of the fan base of the Matrix movies - see Munch’s post for an example - when any aspect of the movies is called into question. The Truman Show meets my definition for originality; neither Matrix movie does. As a script, the first movie was mediocre at best. The sequel had the worst script it’s been my misfortune to encounter in several years: bad on every conceivable level.
It’s my opinion that searching for literary precursors to the movies is pointless. The Matrix movies are derivative of other movies to a far greater degree than of science fiction books. The brothers may have read a few books, but their sensibilities are purely visual. This makes for movies that appeal to a large audience even if their “philosophy” is risible to anyone who has ever read a philosophical book.
Hope this one goes through. I tried last night to post but kept getting the Netscape connection timed out message. I think the machines didn’t like my message.
I don’t think that Dark City and The Matrix had the exact same look and feel. I also think there’s probably a lot more to both films than you realize.
Dark City was just that - a dark 1950s dense noir urban setting. There wasn’t anything apocalyptic or dystopian or even futuristic about it. Even the alien technology was pre-electric in its look and feel. The city at night is exactly what it was. Aside from some very contrasting and evocative imagery with Shell Beach, Dark City did exactly one setting, and it did it amazingly well.
Although there were some scenes in The Matrix which were in a similar setting - the car scene with Neo, Trinity, and Switch, or Neo meets Morpheus, or the subway fight scene - the vast majority of the film looked nothing like Dark City. You had the obsequious cell phones and computers, unlike the mid-century technology in Dark City. You had the futuristic post-apocalypse, and the hovercraft. You had the office scene, the dojo scene, the lobby scene, and the helicopter scene, all of which looked nothing like anything from Dark City. You had lots and lots of guns, whereas Dark City had two handguns, and several knives. Costumes were very different: everyone in Dark City wore a long coat, and most of them wore hats. Music was industrial in one movie and techno in the other. The special effects in the two films were nothing alike. In The Matrix, you never saw the stars once, whereas this was such an important visual in the previous film.
If The Matrix was out to copy Dark City, where were the creeping spirals of insanity? Where were the haunted flashbacks? Where was the frenetic pacing? The creepy and ghastly bad guys? The lightning? The cigarettes? Chracters based on Bumstead, Schreber, and Emma?