Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Matrix is Unrealistic

Talking with Sam yesterday, I realized that, despite all the realism that went into making the movie "The Matrix", there was one detail about the movie that breaks my otherwise intact suspension of disbelief.

No, it's not the sequels: it's the character names. Let's take the three main characters. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity. What's wrong with this picture?

That's right: they're all supposed to be the world's greatest hackers. But none of them utilize leet-speak in their names! Come on, movie! Who do you think you're fooling? The proper names for the three main characters are:

n30
m0r4h3u5
and
7r1n17y

See? Just a little adjustment like that, and the whole movie becomes a startlingly believable tale of a man kung-fu-fighting AI programs in his head while flying in some sort of hovering submarine thing being chased by killer squid-robots.

The same thing goes for the conversation on N30's computer early in the film:

"w4k3 up, n30."
"w7f! wh0 4r3 y0u?"
"t3h m47r1x pwn5 y0u, n00b!"
"0h n035!"
"f0110w t3h wh173 r4bb17, kk?"
"101 wu7?"
"kn0(k kn0(k, n30."

Man, they could've really made something with the concept, if they'd just taken the time to get it right. Sad, really.

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