I found this website ages ago, and as I was cleaning up my firefox bookmarks tonight (which have ballooned out of control) I rediscovered it.

http://thematrixtruth.remoteviewinglight.com/index.html

This guys has posted scripts from the matrix movies. Included is something he refers to as a "shadow script" . Its supposed to be a moview script that takes place between The Matrix and Reloaded I think. Its not bad, but Im guessing that if it was genuine it would have sufaced somewhere else. No mention from the website owner how it was come across. If you have some spare time, its an interesting read.

BC, having done some "script writing" for the matrix, I'm particularly interested in what you think. So if you take a look at it, post up your thoughts! Im going to go re-read it myself as I havent looked at this in a long time....

Seems like fan fiction to me, probably written after the trilogy was out, or at least after the second movie was out. The dialogue is very high quality for fan fiction (although Niobe's "what if they toughen the Matrix code" is notably bad, Smith's dialogue seems very plain, and Agents use too many contractions), although some feels slightly too rough or cornball, particularly Neo's. It couldn't have been a script written by the brothers after the first movie, because no mention of anything from it was ever made afterwards. It could possibly be a professional effort to come up with a money-making fourth movie, I suppose, but given the pretty clear stance of the brothers that they were through with Matrix movies after the trilogy, that seems unlikely. And there are a few typos, like "MORPHUES."

It particularly seems like fan fiction because it tries to explain/include as much as possible: Choi and Dujour as operatives, detailed attempts at explaining how Matrix code, Neos, Metacortex, and other mechanisms work, and so forth. It does these things fairly well, but this is intense fan stuff that wouldn't make for an interesting broad market movie.

I don't think any sane screenwriter would have written the "Gregory" character for Keanu Reeves. ;) And the non-dialogue in the script is far wordier, and less punchy, than the rapid descriptions in the Wachowski scripts.

There are also things that just don't seem to fit very well with the established rules and scale in the films: the missile-packing ring of ships in airspace above Zion, the unawakened but very powerful Gregory, the way Agent Brown addresses the cop, Neo's disintegration of the Metacortex building, Choi's last stand, Trinity's self-healing, Razor and Morpheus defeating Smith, and so on. I thought the mention that the Machines breed humans only by cloning was odd, and, in my view, an incorrect interpretation of how the pod system and fields work.

Similarly, Metacortex being a sort of physical Achilles heel of the Matrix feels like a lowbrow interpretation of what I think were for the Wachowskis much higher level abstractions; I encountered MXO players, for instance, who thought that the thing for Zion or EPN to do was to invade the Government Building, and I always found that to be a silly thing to want to do: okay, you took over a simulated building. Congrats. For the Wachowskis, the existence of the Matrix hinged on a complex and significantly abstract process of human belief and Machine desires, not on knocking down a building.

It goes against two major themes of the movies:

1) The whole plot of the Machines turning to an anti-Neo to counter Neo is just not in tune with the rest of the trilogy, which is about Machine (who is really Man, but denies it) vs Man, not Machine needing Man to go vs Man.

2) Morpheus wanting to destroy the Matrix and kill everyone in it is not in tune with his intense desire, in the movies, to save people.

So yeah I think it's fan fiction, but an entertaining read. I liked Morpheus' "reload me."

You know, after I posted this, I actually went back and re-read it. After re-reading it, I was slightly mortified that I posted it hahahaha. One thing that I noted on the re-read was the use of profanity, which just doesnt seem to fit with the rest of the movie. I cant say that Ive ever read a "real" Matrix script, but certainly in the movies that W bros seemed to take the high road and use a minimal amount of profanity - nary an F bomb in sight. Of course, you could make the argument (and some have) that for some people the extensive use of the phrase "Jesus Christ" in the first movie is swearing. I think we all know why that phrase was used when it was in the movies, and no need to go down that road. Unless of course someone wants to, in which case Ill be happy to discuss : )

So yeah, I agree on all counts with you! I *did* like the Chio and Dujour thing I have to say....it kind of ties very nicely to the first movie. I guess I was thinking *if* this was really written before the 2nd and 3rd scripts, then the events described could have been a first shot at a follow up. However, not really a movie that showcases the heros journey very well, and would have moved the story arc in a different direction.

I am curious about your mention of the cloning system....I in fact also thought that cloning was the methodology implied. What are your thoughts on that?

So when you were writing MxO canon (damn thats cool) , did your scripts have to go through any W bros approvals? Or was it a Chadwick thing? Or am I completely off base?

I don't see why the Machines couldn't just get an egg from a female poddy, sperm from a male poddy, stick 'em together somewhere--either artificially inseminate the female, or do it in an artificial womb--and anyway just grow the resulting fetus in their fields. Dunno why cloning would be significantly easier than that. Also you couldn't really use cloning if you wanted to produce believable offspring ("hey our son looks just like me, and I looked just like my father, and he looked just like my grandfather" would start to raise eyebrows after a few generations, yaknow), and I think they did want to do that.

For most of the time that Paul was on the project, I sent upcoming subchapter plans to him, and he would bring up any problems he had--usually he was fine with it. If it was something important and he wasn't sure it was something the Wachowskis would want happening in the Matrix, he'd send it to them for approval; that only happened once or twice, though. Closer to the time Paul's departure was announced, he was busy with other stuff and couldn't go over the plans I sent to him, so in effect there was no longer any approval process for the story I was working on--I sent them to Walrus too but they were really complex and I think maybe he just scanned them for swear words or something. ;)

Alright, yes I see your point about cloning...I guess that does make a bit more sense. We know that everyone did *not* look the same in the real so, yeah, the duplication process doesn't pass the smell test. I suppose that Im thinking that "the One" was created by genetic manipulation thereby providing him with abilities of the One. Which really wouldnt be cloning as much as...genetic tomfoolery. And that isnt really a thought out position as much as what I automatically assumed from watching the movies a thousand times!

You must be quite proud of your time spent in MxO, Im amazed by it.

Just out of curiousity, was there anything that you know of that was absolutely never to be allowed in MXO (either story or gameplay)?

And this:

"I sent them to Walrus too but they were really complex and I think maybe he just scanned them for swear words or something. ;) "

is awesome!

Well we weren't allowed to have the color blue! Although the artists would forget sometimes and use blue anyway and back when I was a bug tester I'd have to file bugs like "the sea in the painting at coordinates xyz in Westview is a little too blue." They didn't fix all of those though. ;)

The only proposed story point of mine that the brothers shot down was the Machines not actually using humans for power; I think they viewed that physical symbiosis as sort of the life blood of the whole Matrix concept.

Ah yes the color blue - just like in the movies. The original Matrix movie DVD has the commentary track and they do talk about taking all the blue out of the scenes. I always left my green tint on in MxO, although I know many people turned it off....

You know, I always thought that using humans for power was sort of a plot hole in the practical sense. I do understand that the dependence theme required it though. Bold of you to suggest abandoning it!

Thanks for chatting with me about this - I never know if you are just sick of being asked questions, are allowed to answer them, etc. Dont want to be a pest you know!

I can't always talk about stuff other people did, but it's no problem talking about the stuff I worked on!