‘The Matrix‘ blew up the scene when it premiered in 1999. The visual world the Wachowski‘s created was ground-breaking at the time. The 360-degree slow-motion photography was a huge selling point for the film — along with the grim green-hued aesthetic of Mr. Anderson’s and Neo’s worlds. Part of that green atmosphere was the cascading lines of code that filled the screen from the very first frame and created the film’s title card. To most, it looked like a lot of random code with Japanese, numeric, and computer-y characters. But, Simon Whiteley knows better.
Whiteley is a production and art designer who was tasked with the design of ‘The Matrix’ and that included the code you see all over the film. Whiteley is currently out on a press tour promoting his latest production design work for ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie‘ and spilled the beans on what all that Matrix code actually means.
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Whiteley told CNET that he scanned in recipes from his wife’s Japanese cookbook to make the iconic green letters that dribble over the screens throughout the movie. “I like to tell everybody that The Matrix’s code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes,” Whiteley muses. To quote Neo, “whoa.”
The recipes could literally be anything. The whole time ‘The Matrix’ may have been broadcasting a killer dashi or curry udon recipe to the entire world. With ‘The Matrix’ codex revealed, we have to wonder how long it’ll take before some crafty cinephile decodes those lines and a Matrix recipes book is released on the world.
(Via CNET)
