The Matrix created by The Wachowski sisters is a “science fiction action media franchise” about a small team which fights a desperate war against artificial intelligence (AI) that has enslaved humanity in an extremely advanced virtual reality system. The iconic trilogy is by far one of the most important films of the last 20 years. It re-defined action and motion, dystopian setting, virtual reality and special effects in cinema.

It all began with The Matrix (1999) and continued with two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions in 2003, all written and directed by The Wachowskis.

While the world celebrates The Matrix‘s 20th film anniversary to mark the film franchise that changed cinema forever, here is a look at some of the lesser known facts about the film.

* The Matrix (1999) became the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, a title it held for 13 years until Deadpool happened.

* The studio insisted on a great deal of dialogue to explain the film as they described the screenplay as “the script that nobody understands.” Laurence Fishburne had said he read the script once and could not understand why other people were finding it so confusing. However, he did doubt if the film would ever get made for being “so smart”.

* The film that is known for its high end concept and visual experimentation is also popular for the protagonists seen mostly in black trench coats. According to costume designer Kym Barrett, Trinity’s costume was made with cheap PVC because of tight budget. Similarly, Neo’s coat was a wool blend purchased for $3 a yard.

* To prepare for the scene in which Neo wakes up in a pod, Keanu Reeves lost 15 pounds, and shaved his whole body for that emaciated look.

* The name, Neo is an anagram for One. The name that he is called throughout the movie.

* The first film was an acclaimed film, both commercially and critically. Winning 4 Academy Awards, introducing popular culture symbols such as red pill and blue pill to influencing action filmmaking, for the film’s immense contribution,  it was added to the National Film Registry for preservation.

* Legendary Hong Kong stunt coordinator Woo-Ping Yuen had initially refused to work on the film. He had hoped that he would turn off the Wachowskis by asking for an exorbitant fee. It didn’t. He liked the script and made an impossible request of having complete control over the fight scenes and that he would train the actors for four months before the shoot began. His request was complied with.

* Carrie-Anne Moss twisted her ankle while shooting one of the scenes but didn’t tell anyone until after filming fearing she won’t be re-cast.

* All scenes that take place in the Matrix are green tinted as if seen through a computer monitor while the real world scenes have the blue tint. The directors thought that blue was a more real world colour. The fight scene between Neo and Morpheus, which is neither in the real world, nor in the Matrix, is yellow tinted.

* For Keanu Reeves’ scenes set in the real world in the beginning of the film, his costumes were shabby and made to ill-fit. This was done to suggest, literally, Thomas Anderson’s feeling of not quite fitting into the world.

* When Carrie-Anne Moss saw the first cut, she saw herself for the first time in a movie.

* All actors of the franchise were required to be able to understand and explain The Matrix. Simulacra and Simulation, the 1981 philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard, was required reading for most of the cast and crew.

* Keanu Reeves had said the Wachowskis had him read Simulacra and Simulation, Out of Control, and Evolutionary Psychology even before they opened up the script. It was because of this that he was able to explain all the philosophical nuanced involved.

* Before it became a film, the Wachowskis harboured their vision for five and a half years, working through 14 drafts of screenplay. However, when it became difficult to imagine how this would translate onto screen, a worry for most studio executives, they hired leading illustrators Steve Skroce and Geofrey Darrow, who created over 600 storyboards.

* The idea first came to them when they were thinking of a new story for a comic book series. They wrote the script before their first directorial Bound(1996), and worked on it up until production.

* Matrix’s famous sunglasses were designed by the cult label Blinde, which prides itself in producing handmade glasses. The company’s founder, Richard Walker, had to tender against giants like Ray-Ban and Arnette to win the film’s sunglasses contract. He set himself apart by scratch-designing pairs of glasses purely based on the characters’ unusual names.

* By 2002, the famous ” Bullet Time” sequence had been spoofed in over 20 different films.

* In an online interview during the release of the film, the Wachowskis revealed that given Neo’s choice, both would take the Blue Pill.

* Warner Brothers green lit the film fairly late into pre-production. For a long time, everyone thought it was never going to get made. In fact, by being able to shoot the film in Australia, the filmmakers kept the budget under $60 million. The film wouldn’t have been made at all if it were shot in the US. It would have cost a record $180 million.

* Gary Oldman was considered for the role of Morpheus at one point, just as Samuel L. Jackson was.

* Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt were all considered to play Neo.

* The windows into which Trinity crashed the helicopter were those of the screening room of Columbia Pictures in Sydney, Australia.

* The action scenes of the film came from the directors’ admiration for Japanese animation such as Ninja Scroll (1993), Akira (1988) and Ghost in the Shell. Joel Silver, the producer, had said the directors first described their intentions for the film by showing him that animé and saying, “We wanna do that for real.”

* The film, apart from drawing upon various philosophical influences such as Baudrillard, Marx, Kafka and Homer’s Odyssey is also a tribute to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventured in Wonderland and is also understood as a modern adaptation of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

* It also has innumerable Biblical references, to name a few. Neo-The One, messiah figure and saviour of humanity closely resembles Christ. Even his last name, Anderson, etymologically means “son of man”, a Biblical phrase referring to Christ. The name Trinity meaning Holy Trinity is also an added Christian theme. The name of Morpheus’ ship, the Nebuchadnezzar, is a Biblical reference to King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.

* For the cellphone conversation between Neo and Morpheus in the MetaCortex office, from which the film really begins, Keanu Reeves actually climbed up the window, which was 34 floors up, without a stuntman.

* The opening action sequence took six months of training and four days of shoot.

* Before Neo’s final speech in the end, Keanu Reeves never has more than five sentences in a row to speak.

* Only, 20% of the entire film is visual effects.

* Only the sound of the pod containing a human baby closing required almost 50 sounds put together.

* Neo’s mouth was melted shut during the interrogation scene to mark an intentional homage to the science fiction novel, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, which served as one of the many influences for the film.

The Wachowskis went on to make many acclaimed films after the Matrix trilogy, including V for Vendetta and Cloud Atlas. However, The Matrix is what they are most remembered and appreciated for.

( Fact source: IMDb)