The Matrix-1 Transcript
FADE IN:
INT. COMPUTER SCREEN
On a computer screen; so close it has no boundaries.
A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart
coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black- neon glass.
A phone begins to ring, we hear it as though we were making the call. The cursor continues to throb, relentlessly patient,
until --
MAN (V.O.)
Yeah?
Data now slashes across the screen,
information flashing faster than we can read:
SCREEN
Call trans opt: received.
2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>.
WOMAN(V.O.)
Is everything in place?
SCREEN
Trace program: running.
We listen to the phone conversation as though we were on a third line. The man's name is Cypher. The woman, Trinity.
TRINITY (WOMAN)
(V.O.)
I said, is everything in place?
The entire screen fills with racing
columns of numbers. Shimmering like
green-electric rivers, they rush at a
10-digit phone number in the top
corner.
CYPHER (MAN) (V.O.)
You weren't supposed to
relieve me.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I know but I felt like
taking a shift.
The area code is identified. The
first three numbers suddenly fixed,
leaving only seven flowing columns.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You like him, don't you?
You like watching him?
We begin moving toward the screen,
closing in as each digit is matched,
one by one, snapping into place like
the wheels of a slot machine.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Don't be ridiculous.
CYPHER (V.O.)
We're going to kill him.
Do you understand that?
He's going to die just
like the others.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Morpheus believes he is
the One.
Only two thin digits left.
CYPHER (V.O.)
Do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
I... it doesn't matter
what I believe.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You don't, do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
If you have something to
say, I suggest you say it
to Morpheus.
CYPHER (V.O.)
I intend to, believe me.
Someone has to.
The final number pops into place--
TRINITY (V.O.)
Did you hear that?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Hear what?
SCREEN
Trace complete. Call
origin: #312-555-0690.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Are you sure this line is
clean?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Yeah, 'course I'm sure.
We move, still closer, the electric
hum of the green numbers growing into
an ominous roar.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I better go.
She hangs up as we pass through the
numbers, entering the netherworld of
the computer screen. Suddenly, a
flashlight cuts open the darkness and
we find ourselves in--
INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
The hotel was abandoned after a fire
licked its way across the polyester
carpeting, destroying several rooms as
it spooled soot up the walls and
ceiling, leaving patterns of permanent
shadow.
We follow four armed POLICE OFFICERS
using flashlights as they creep down
the blackened hall and ready
themselves on either side of Room 303.
The biggest of them violently kicks in
the door. The other cops pour in
behind him, guns thrust before them.
BIG COP
Police! Freeze!
The room is almost devoid of
furniture.
There is a fold-up table and chair
with a phone, a modem, and a Powerbook
computer. The only light in the room
is the glow of the computer.
Sitting there, her hands still on the
keyboard, is TRINITY; a woman in black
leather.
BIG COP
Hands behind your head!
Now! Do it!
She slowly puts her hands behind her
head.
EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
A black sedan with tinted windows
glides in through the police cruisers.
AGENT SMITH, AGENT BROWN, and AGENT
JONES get out of the car.
They wear dark suits and sunglasses
even at night. They are also always
hardwired; small Secret Service
earphones in one ear, the cord coiling
back into their shirt collars.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant?
LIEUTENANT
Oh shit.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant, you were given
specific orders--
LIEUTENANT
I'm just doing my job.
You gimme that Juris-my-
dick-tion and you can cram
it up your ass.
AGENT SMITH
The orders were for your
protection.
The Lieutenant laughs.
LIEUTENANT
I think we can handle one
little girl.
Agent Smith nods to Agent Brown as
they start toward the hotel.
LIEUTENANT
I sent two units. They're
bringing her down now.
AGENT SMITH
No, Lieutenant, your men
are already dead.
INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the
other cops holding a bead. They've
done this a hundred times, they know
they've got her, until the Big Cop
reaches with the cuffs and Trinity
moves --
It almost doesn't register, so smooth
and fast, inhumanly fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity's palm
snaps up and the nose explodes, blood
erupting. Her leg kicks with the force
of a wrecking ball and he flies back,
a two-hundred-fifty pound sack of limp
meat and bone that slams into the cop
farthest from her.
Trinity moves again, bullets raking
the walls, flashlights sweeping with
panic as the remaining cops try to
stop a leather-clad ghost.
A gun still in the cop's hand is
snatched, twisted and fired. There is
a final violent exchange of gunfire
and when it's over, Trinity is the
only one standing.
A flashlight rocks slowly to a stop.
TRINITY
Shit.
EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Agent Brown enters the hotel while
Agent Smith heads for the alley.
INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Trinity is on the phone, pacing. The
other end is answered.
MAN (V.O.)
Operator.
TRINITY
Morpheus! The line was
traced! I don't know how.
MORPHEUS (MAN)
(V.O.)
I know. They cut the
hardline. This line is not
a viable exit.
TRINITY
Are there any Agents?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes.
TRINITY
Goddamnit!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
You have to focus. There
is a phone. Wells and
Lake. You can make it.
She takes a deep breath, centering
herself.
TRINITY
All right--
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go.
She drops the phone.
INT. HALL
She bursts out of the room as Agent
Brown enters the hall, leading another
unit of police. Trinity races to the
opposite end, exiting through a broken
window onto the fire escape.
EXT. FIRE ESCAPE
In the alley below, Trinity sees Agent
Smith staring at her. She can only go
up.
EXT. ROOF
On the roof, Trinity is running as
Agent Brown rises over the parapet,
leading the cops in pursuit.
Trinity begins to jump from one roof
to the next, her movements so clean,
gliding in and out of each jump,
contrasted to the wild jumps of the
cops.
Agent Brown, however, has the same
unnatural grace.
The roof falls away into a wide back
alley. The next building is over 40
feet away but Trinity's face is
perfectly calm, staring at some point
beyond the other roof.
COP
That's it, we got her now.
The cops slow, realizing they are
about to see something ugly as Trinity
drives at the edge, launching herself
into the air.
From above, the ground seems to flow
beneath her as she hangs in flight,
then hits, somersaulting up, still
running hard.
COP
Jesus Christ-- that's
impossible!
They stare, slack-jawed, as Agent
Brown duplicates the move exactly,
landing, rolling over a shoulder up
onto one knee.
It is a dizzying chase up and over the
dark plateaued landscape of rooftops
and sheer cliffs of brick.
Ahead she sees her only chance, 50
feet beyond the point where her path
drops away into a paved chasm, there
is--
EXT. WINDOW
A window; a yellow glow in the midst
of a dark brick building.
Trinity zeros in on it, running as
hard as she can and--
Hurtles herself into the empty night
space, her body leveling into a dive.
She falls, arms covering her head as
the whole world seems to spin on its
axis--
INT. BACK STAIRWELL
And she crashes with an explosion of
glass and wood, then falls onto a back
stairwell, tumbling, bouncing down
stairs bleeding, broken--
But still alive.
She wheels on the smashed opening
above, her gun instantly in her hand,
trained, waiting for Agent Brown but
is met by only a slight wind that
hisses against the fanged maw of
broken glass.
Trinity tries to move. Everything
hurts.
TRINITY
Get up, Trinity. You're
fine. Get up-- just get
up!
She stands and limps down the rest of
the stairs.
EXT. STREET
Trinity emerges from the shadows of an
alley and, at the end of the block, in
a pool of white street light, she sees
it--
The telephone booth.
Obviously hurt, she starts down the
concrete walk, focusing in completely,
her pace quickening, as the phone
begins to ring.
Across the street, a garbage truck
suddenly turns U- turns, its tires
screaming as it accelerates. Trinity
sees the headlights of the truck
arcing at the telephone booth as if
taking aim.
Gritting through the pain, she races
the truck, slamming into the booth,
the headlights blindingly bright,
bearing down on the box of Plexiglas
just as--
She answers the phone.
There is a frozen instant of silence
before the hulking mass of dark metal
lurches up onto the sidewalk--
Barrelling through the booth,
bulldozing it into a brick wall,
smashing it to Plexiglas pulp.
After a moment, a black loafer steps
down from the cab of the garbage
truck. Agent Smith inspects the
wreckage. There is no body. Trinity is
gone.
His jaw sets as he grinds his molars
in frustration. Agents Jones and Brown
walk up behind him.
AGENT BROWN
She got out.
AGENT SMITH
It doesn't matter.
AGENT BROWN
The informant is real.
Agent Smith almost smiles.
AGENT SMITH
Yes.
AGENT JONES
We have the name of their
next target.
AGENT BROWN
The name is Neo.
The handset of the pay phone lays on
the ground, separated in the crash
like a severed limb.
AGENT SMITH
We'll need a search
running.
AGENT JONES
It's already begun.
We are sucked towards the mouthpiece
of the phone, closer and closer, until
the smooth gray plastic spreads out
like a horizon and the small holes
widen until we fall through one--
Swallowed by darkness.
The darkness crackles with
phosphorescent energy, the word
'searching' blazing in around us as we
emerge from a computer screen.
The screen flickers with windowing
data as a search engine runs with a
steady relentless rhythm.
We drift back from the screen and into--
INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
It is a studio apartment that seems
overgrown with technology.
Weed-like cables coil everywhere, duct-
taped into thickets that wind up and
around the legs of several desks.
Tabletops are filled with cannibalized
equipment that lay open like an
autopsied corpse.
At the center of this technological
rat-nest is NEO, a man who knows more
about living inside a computer than
outside one.
He is asleep in front of his PC.
Behind him, the computer screen
suddenly goes blank. A prompt appears.
SCREEN
Wake up, Neo.
Neo's eye pries open. He sits up, one
eye still closed, looking around,
unsure of where he is. He notices the
screen.
He types 'CTRL X' but the letter 'T'
appears.
NEO
What... ?
He hits another and an 'H' appears. He
keeps typing, pushing random functions
and keys while the computer types out
a message as though it had a mind of
its own.
He stops and stares at the four words
on the screen.
SCREEN
The Matrix has you.
NEO
What the hell?
He hits the 'ESC' button. Another
message appears.
SCREEN
Follow the white rabbit.
He hits it again and the message
repeats. He rubs his eyes but when he
opens them, there is another message.
SCREEN
Knock, knock, Neo.
Someone knocks on his door and he
almost jumps out of his chair.
He looks back at the computer but the
screen is now blank.
Someone knocks again. Neo rises, still
unnerved.
NEO
Who is it?
CHOI (O.S.)
It's Choi.
Neo flips a series of locks and opens
the door, leaving the chain on. A
young Chinese MAN stands with several
of his friends.
NEO
You're two hours late.
CHOI
I know. It's her fault.
NEO
You got the money?
CHOI
Two grand.
He takes out an envelope and gives it
to Neo through the cracked door.
NEO
Hold on.
He closes the door. On the floor near
his bed is a book, Baudrillard's
Simulacra and Simulations. The book
has been hollowed out and inside are
several computer disks. He takes one,
sticks the money in the book and drops
it on the floor.
Opening the door, he hands the disk to
Choi.
CHOI
Hallelujah! You are my
savior, man! My own
personal Jesus Christ!
NEO
If you get caught using
that--
CHOI
I know, I know. This never
happened. You don't exist.
NEO
Right...
Neo nods as the strange feeling of
unrealness suddenly returns.
CHOI
Something wrong, man? You
look a little whiter than
usual.
NEO
I don't know... My
computer...
He looks back at Choi, unable to
explain what just happened.
NEO
You ever have the feeling
that you're not sure if
you're awake or still
dreaming?
CHOI
All the time. It's called
mescaline and it is the
only way to fly.
He smiles and slaps the hand of his
nearest droog.
CHOI
It sounds to me like you
need to unplug, man. A
little R and R. What do
you think, Dujour, should
we take him with us?
DUJOUR
Definitely.
NEO
I can't. I have to work
tomorrow.
DUJOUR
Come on. It'll be fun. I
promise.
He looks up at her and suddenly
notices on her black leather
motorcycle jacket dozens of pins:
bands, symbols, slogans, military
medals and--
A small white rabbit. The room tilts.
NEO
Yeah, yeah. Sure, I'll go.
INT. APARTMENT
An older apartment; a series of halls
connects a chain of small high-
ceilinged rooms lined with heavy
casements. Smoke hangs like a veil,
blurring the few lights there are.
Dressed predominantly in black, people
are everywhere, gathered in cliques
around pieces of furniture like jungle
cats around a tree.
Neo stands against a wall, alone,
sipping from a bottle of beer, feeling
completely out of place, he is about
to leave when he notices a woman
staring at him.
The woman is Trinity. She walks