The Matrix (1999): A Collection of Enlightening Scenes
"Only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon. Then you’ll see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
Every time I watch The Matrix, I watch it in a new way.
The first time I watched it, I was a youngin’ and watched it as an action movie. The neighborhood kids and I would reenact the lobby shootout scene in my friend’s basement. We started the scene on his dad’s laptop (probably illegally downloaded on BitTorrent) and switched off the lights. The only light that remained was from the mid-summer sun coming through the glass block windows. “Backup, send backup,” I said. Then my friend walked into the room draped in a trench coat and blew me away with a squirt gun.
The second time I watched it, I was in college. I had transferred to the main campus and felt completely overwhelmed. I was living in a crummy dorm with popcorn ceilings and failing my math and engineering classes. The illusory pressures of life were suffocating. Does this really have to be my life? The Matrix told me no. I switched my major to creative writing and life got better. I still didn’t like the bustle of university, but I took what I could. I suppose the drugs provided by the university psychiatrist helped, too. Surely my unrest was not due to the environment I was in. It was a chemical imbalance in me.
Since then, I would watch the movie annually, with the next most important time being in 2019, the year I came off the drugs (Celexa). What started as withdrawal transformed into something powerful. An awakening they call it, and it was almost too much to handle. Jarring. Disorienting. Concepts like “rebirth” became a lived experience. “Why do my eyes hurt?” Neo asks after being ejected from the matrix. “Because you’ve never used them before,” Morpheus tells him. No longer was The Matrix a dystopian action movie with some inspirational messages about fighting the system. It was a movie about the stages of awakening, and it became a close friend.
The last time I watched The Matrix was when traveling from the Philippines to Thailand. When a specific scene grabbed me, I would pause the movie and reflect on it in my journal. This post is a result of those reflections, and includes the best Matrix scenes as they relate to my life in general or my time in the Philippines (an experience I wrote about in more depth in here). For each scene, I also include the relevant excerpt from the script.
Note: To watch The Matrix scenes in this post, it’s best to rent or buy the movie on YouTube. This way, when you click the “Watch scene” links below, you’ll arrive at the scenes in a high quality, certified version of the movie. This approach supports my dream of creating the “Kindle of movies” so you can easily save your favorite scenes in movies you own, like you can easily save your favorite passages in ebooks you purchase. If you already own a license to The Matrix on a different platform like Prime Video or Apple TV, you can connect it to YouTube with Movies Anywhere. Enjoy!
Fearful Mind (Office Scene)
Unawakend Neo looks out at the ledge of the skyscraper. Should he turn around and be taken by the agents, or try his luck on the ledge to make his way to the roof? “This is insane,” he says. “Why’s this happening to me? What’d I do? I’m nobody. I didn’t do anything.” He exits the window. A stiff breeze nearly knocks him over. Fear of falling overwhelms him. He turns around and is taken by the agents.
How many times has fear made your submit? Do the times become less over the years? When reflecting on the last time I faced fear — even a little — was when deciding how much to tip the driver for my Grab (the alternative to Uber is Southeast Asia). 100 Philippine pesos or 150? Fear of running short on money while traveling and never being able to save enough to buy my own property made me think 100 (about two dollars USD). But I knew what was right. When unsure, always tip more my grandma would say. So I tipped more. This is choosing a better life. Even this small act.
INT. EMPTY OFFICE
Neo looks down; the building's glass wall vertigos into a concrete chasm.
NEO
No way, no way, this is crazy.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
There are only two ways out of this building. One is that scaffold. The other is in their custody. You take a chance either way. I leave it to you.
CLICK. He hangs up. Neo looks at the door, then back at the scaffold.
NEO
This is insane! Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody. I didn't do anything.
He climbs up onto the window ledge. Hanging onto the frame, he steps onto the small ledge. The scaffold seems even farther away.
NEO
I'm going to die.
The WIND suddenly BLASTS up the face of the building, knocking Neo off balance. Recoiling, he clings harder to the frame, and the phone falls out of his hand.
He watches as it is swallowed by the distance beneath him.
NEO
This is insane! I can't do this! Forget it!
He climbs back into the office just as a cop opens the door.
NEO
Shit!Waking Up (Pill Scene)
Neo’s dream world starts to crumble after taking the red pill. The mirror next to him becomes liquid. He touches it. The chrome glass sticks to his skin and slowly covers his hand, arm, entire body. Morpheus says: “Have you ever had a dream Neo that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? Would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” “This can’t be,” Neo says. “Be what? Real?”
This scene always brings to my mind the Jesus teaching from The Bible. “Be in the world, but not of the world.” Many people think this is all there is. This life. This world. But there is something more true. This is our essence. What we long for. When we forget, or stay too long in our dream, it’s shocking to return to. But only when we return can we live more lightly in the world and come closer to freedom. This is the enlightening Neo experiences at the end of the movie.
INT. OTHER ROOM
Neo reaches out to touch the mirror and his fingers disappear beneath the rippling surface.
Quickly, he tries to pull his fingers out but the mirror stretches in long rubbery strands like mirrored taffy stuck to his fingertips.
MORPHEUS
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?
A flash of lightning flickers white hot against Neo.
NEO
This can't be...
MORPHEUS
Be what? Be real?
The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away, until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.
MORPHEUS
What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo? How would you know the difference between the dreamworld and the real world?
Neo looks at his hand; fingers distended into mirrored icicles that begin to melt rapidly, dripping, running like wax down his fingers, spreading across his palm where he sees his face reflected.System Dependence (Training Scene)
Morpheus walks Neo through a training simulation that mimics the busy city streets of New York City in the matrix. They walk by all the people. Business men and women, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, police men. “You have to understand,” Morpheus says — “Most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on that system, that they will fight to protect it.”
At the beginning of a 5-hour drive in a group transport van from El Nido to Puerto Princessa, Philippines, a French woman in the back row of the van said, “Please stop! Stop the car, please!” At first I thought she just really had to pee. But when getting out of the van she said, “The speed limit is 30 and the driver is going 70! I’m not going to die rushing to get to the airport!”
Before this, we picked her and her boyfriend up from a posh hotel in El Nido. They were the last passengers to board and made the driver lug their suitcases up the steep driveway from the hotel to the main road. After 20 minutes on the curvy, pockmarked roads of the Philippines, she cracked. Hopelessly. Dependent. On the system. Welcome to the real world. We left them on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and continued on our journey.
EXT. CITY STREET - TRAINING PROGRAM - DAY
Morpheus moves effortlessly through a crowded downtown street while Neo struggles to keep up, constantly bumped and shouldered off the path.
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is a system, Neo, and that system is our enemy. But when you are inside and you look around, what do you see; businessmen, lawyers, teachers, carpenters. The minds of the very people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of the system and
that makes them our enemy.
A cop writing a parking ticket stares at Neo from behind his sunglasses.
MORPHEUS
You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.
A beautiful woman in a red dress smiles at Neo as she passes by.
MORPHEUS
Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in
the red dress?
NEO
I was...
MORPHEUS
Look again.
Neo turns just as Agent Smith levels a gun at his face.No Spoon (Oracle Scene)
Neo is waiting to see the Oracle. One of the other “potentials” is a young boy with a shaved head. In his hand is a spoon that’s bending on its own in an unnatural way. Neo is intrigued. He takes the spoon and gives it a try. “Do not try to bend the spoon,” the boy says. “That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.” “What truth?” Neo says. “There is no spoon — then you’ll see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
INT. ORACLE'S APARTMENT
Neo watches a little girl levitate wooden alphabet blocks. Closer to him, a SKINNY BOY with a shaved head holds a spoon which sways like a blade of grass.
In front of him is a pile of spoons bent and twisted into knots. Neo crosses to him and sits. The boy smiles and hands Neo the spoon which is now perfectly straight.
SPOON BOY (SKINNY BOY)
Do not try to bend the spoon. That is impossible. Instead, only
try to realize the truth.
NEO
What truth?
SPOON BOY
That there is no spoon.
Neo nods, staring at the spoon.
NEO
There is no spoon.
SPOON BOY
Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends. It is only
yourself.
The entire room is reflected inside the spoon and as Neo stares into it, it slowly begins to bend until --
A hand touches his shoulder.
PRIESTESS
The Oracle will see you now.
Spoon Boy smiles.No Spoon (Elevator Scene)
Neo whispers the “there is no spoon” mantra again after infiltrating the building where Morpheus is being held captive. He and Trinity blow away an army of guards and take an elevator up to the 42nd floor. Neo hits the emergency stop and Trinity arms a bomb. They slip through the ceiling panel and grab one of the steel lift cables. He slips a harness onto the cable, pulls Trinity in close, and blows out the other lift cable with a shot of his gun. The cab jolts. He pulls Trinity in closer, looks up the mile-long shaft. “There is no spoon,” he whispers, then blows out the end of the cable they’re holding onto. They shoot up the shaft. The elevator crashes. The lobby ignites.
INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT - DAY
Neo ratchets down a clamp onto the elevator cable. Both of them lock on. He looks up the long, dark throat of the building and takes a deep breath.
NEO
There is no spoon.
Neo whips out his GUN and presses it to the cable, lower than they attached themselves.
BOOM! The CABLE SNAPS.
The counter-weights plummet, yanking Trinity and Neo up through the shaft as the elevator falls away beneath them, distending space, filling it with the sound of WHISTLING METAL as they soar to the top.
INT. LOBBY - DAY
The ELEVATOR hits the bottom.
BA-BOOM!
The massive explosion blows open the doors, fire clouds engulfing the elevator section of the lobby.Neo is beginning to believe that he can bend the matrix to his belief. Not will or desire, but a belief in something good like saving a friend. With this positive belief and a belief in the power of himself to bend matter rather than be bent, he’s able to save Morpheus and achieve his goal.
In our own matrix of a world, some might call this manifesting. You are beyond the limits of what you’ve been laughed at for or told is impossible. Believing in this can help you do what feels undoable. There is no spoon. There is nothing in your way besides you.
To help us remember this, I worked with an illustrator to create the comic based on the first “there is no spoon” scene. You can purchase it as a mug on Etsy. May this comic and The Matrix movie clips featured in this post inspire you to escape the thoughts and situations that make you feel trapped.