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The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

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Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#101

Post by caz2000 »

alex1138 wrote: post #34
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #2

Seeing the movie as a kid I totally expect it to be filmed in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, but Sydney never crossed my mind since the shots looks too "North America" to be anything else. Probably because in my mind Sydney is a beach with the opera house and an outback with kangaroos and giant spiders.

Neo fights giant Kangaroo Smith

There's roos (or at least Wallabies) that graze on a big golf course on the other side of Sydney Harbour. They've been known to make it onto the highway and cross the bridge into the city - just near where the red dress scene was filmed.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#102

Post by caz2000 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #21
wkat4242 wrote: post #9

I'm surprised they used two real locations for the hotels. The "Heart O'The City" one at the very start, and the "Deja Vu" staircase. These hotels look really delapidated in the film. I thought they were studio sets. I wonder how they managed to make them look so bad, tbh with late 90s tech (green screen mostly and limited CGI) it sounds like it would have been simpler to just build a delapidated staircase in a studi…

CGI was not as limited as you think in 1999. Look up films from that year and you’ll see.

There was a surprising amount of set dressing done. Some people have pointed out before that they must have put down fake tiles as the direction of the tiles in the film are diagonal (I think) instead of checkered. But as other people have said, Sydney was very run down in the 90s and many buildings were genuinely just like that. It's come a long way.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#103

Post by frollogaston »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #96
frollogaston wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a diss, it was an ok movie. Most people consider it less great than 4 and 5, partially because they redid the big scene in 4.

It did feel derivative, but then they just did it again with one of the sequels because they could, except this time it's a death planet instead of star/moon. The Empire or whatever they called it had been reduced to a parody / comic relief.

And somehow the death planet also has a self-destruct. Well, parody is a good way to put it, the sequels are about as Star Wars as Spaceballs is.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#104

Post by overfeed »

globular-toast wrote: post #70
dylan604 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about the fourth with the gender bend twist? I guess the meme is older than the fourth movie, but I rarely see it even get mentioned let alone memefied. I guess less people would know tetralogy instead of trilogy, at least, I had to look up what a series of 4 would be.

I feel like hardly anyone even know that a fourth exists, let alone seen it. Didn't it come out during COVID? I watched it because I had a home cinema at the time. The thing I hated the most was how it looked more like a YouTube video than a movie. Something just wasn't right and made it feel very much like fanfiction. I've completely forgotten the story but remember it was unsurprising given the more recent developm…

> I've completely forgotten the story but remember it was unsurprising given the more recent developments of the Wachowskis.

I think you mean recent developments at WB. The movie was a self-parody, describing in painful detail the demands from the studio for a sequel Matrix movi- er, "game", even when the creator was so over it.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#106

Post by wkat4242 »

caz2000 wrote: post #102
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CGI was not as limited as you think in 1999. Look up films from that year and you’ll see.

There was a surprising amount of set dressing done. Some people have pointed out before that they must have put down fake tiles as the direction of the tiles in the film are diagonal (I think) instead of checkered. But as other people have said, Sydney was very run down in the 90s and many buildings were genuinely just like that. It's come a long way.

I was there two years after it was filmed. It was not that run down, not by a long shot :) And I lived in a pretty bad area (I used to leave my car unlocked because the heroine junkies would smash the window to have somewhere to sit while shooting up). I guess some of the cleanup was for the benefit of the olympics but that doesn't apply to the back street stuff.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#107

Post by wkat4242 »

emmelaich wrote: post #57
wkat4242 wrote: post #9

I'm surprised they used two real locations for the hotels. The "Heart O'The City" one at the very start, and the "Deja Vu" staircase. These hotels look really delapidated in the film. I thought they were studio sets. I wonder how they managed to make them look so bad, tbh with late 90s tech (green screen mostly and limited CGI) it sounds like it would have been simpler to just build a delapidated staircase in a studi…

Fullerton Hotel (the deja vu staircase) was Sydney's General Post Office. It underwent renovation which took years, at a guess around the time the movie was filmed.

Ahh that makes sense. So they probably didn't have to do too much to make it look grimey.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#108

Post by wkat4242 »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #52
wkat4242 wrote: post #9

I'm surprised they used two real locations for the hotels. The "Heart O'The City" one at the very start, and the "Deja Vu" staircase. These hotels look really delapidated in the film. I thought they were studio sets. I wonder how they managed to make them look so bad, tbh with late 90s tech (green screen mostly and limited CGI) it sounds like it would have been simpler to just build a delapidated staircase in a studi…

The real Heart O' the City Hotel is in Chicago, like the rest of the place names in the movie (although the real name is Heart O' Chicago). The Wachowskis wanted to film there, but Major Daley (historic asshole and scumbag, in case you're not familiar) wouldn't let them. I can't remember what the rationale was, but then of course two Batman movies shot there. The hotel: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29…

Yeah I even know of that guy. The guy that destroyed Meigs field :'(

I got my pilot's license later and if it hadn't been gone I would have loved to do a few circuits there.

I'm surprised they wanted to pretend it was Chicago though. There's many well-known landmarks featured prominently like the AWA tower.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#109

Post by heraldgeezer »

wredcoll wrote: post #97
heraldgeezer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>subverted expectations ... meta deconstruction Anytime these words are written or spoken it is time to run.

I suspect this is an age thing. The older I get the more I appreciate stories that surprise me.

I agree, but not just for the sake of it. Often it feels like a cheap "twist".

A well made craft still excels.

Re: The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]

#110

Post by wkat4242 »

protocolture wrote: post #42
wkat4242 wrote: post #9

I'm surprised they used two real locations for the hotels. The "Heart O'The City" one at the very start, and the "Deja Vu" staircase. These hotels look really delapidated in the film. I thought they were studio sets. I wonder how they managed to make them look so bad, tbh with late 90s tech (green screen mostly and limited CGI) it sounds like it would have been simpler to just build a delapidated staircase in a studi…

I was in Sydneys chinatown a few years back and above one of the restaurants I could see into a burnt out old apartment building that 100% reminded me of the matrix. I doubt it would have been too hard to find.

Oh when I was there 24 years ago Chinatown wasn't all that bad. We often went to eat there, or go to paddy's market (which was not quite in chinatown but on the edge of it).

It was also the only "ethnic town" that actually felt like one. "Koreatown" and "Thai town" were just normal CBD streets with maybe one or two massage parlors. I think those names were invented more for publicity than anything.

I wish I could go back to Oceania for a long trip some day. But it's so far and expensive from Europe :'(

PS Chinatown isn't even like a neighbourhood, it's like 2 streets ;) But the Chinese influence is everywhere in Sydney. Even in the neighbourhood I lived there was this really cool Chinese temple in the middle of a normal terrace housing block.

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