(Author's Note: Inspiration for abridgement comes from the breadboxes of Evadne. "The Matrix" doesn't belong to me. It's really a movie from Warner Brothers. A lot of people liked it. I risk offending all of them.)
THE MATRIX: BREADBOX EDITION
FADE IN: DIGITS scrolling across a COMPUTER DISPLAY: Voices of TRINITY and CYPHER.
VOICE OF TRINITY
I love him.
VOICE OF CYPHER
You know I'm going to kill him.
VOICE OF TRINITY
Wait, this conversation isn't supposed to happen
for another hour.
VOICE OF VISUAL FX
Pay no attention to the people.
I'm the central character in this story.
MOVIE COPS
Raise your hands while we stand in a nice row for you
like the movie lummoxes we are.
and then stops to make another PHONE CALL.
TRINITY
Boss, I think we're in a Keystone movie.
MOVIE COPS
Look at them jump!
Since we can't follow, let's bumble.
She escapes by winning the race to a PHONE BOOTH.
TRANSITION TO the screen of NEO's computer,
which is doing its best research when NEO is ASLEEP.
COMPUTER MESSAGE
Wake up, mister hacker-whiz.
Haven't you heard of color monitors yet?
NEO
Here is your contraband.
Don't tell any of these other guys watching
that you got it from me.
STONER DUDE
You are Jesus Christ. Am I being subtle enough?
STONER CHICK
I think a groggy, pasty, bleary-eyed stranger
would be fun to take partying.
TRINITY
I can take you to Morpheus,
but I'll wait until you are first arrested and bugged.
CARDBOARD BOSS
Your job is to sit in a cube and do nothing.
I expect you to do it on time.
A CELL PHONE is delivered with a call from MORPHEUS.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
They're coming to get you. Do exactly as I say.
NEO
Okay.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Scurry like a crab.
NEO
Righto.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Dive into the conveniently empty office.
NEO
Done.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Now step out the 11th floor window and cling to the sheer glass.
NEO
Uh...
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Too bad champ. You had your chance.
AGENT SMITH
I'm going to groan every word I say to you
in hopes that it will win your confidence.
NEO
No thanks.
AGENT SMITH
Then I'll give you a toy. Remember "Transformers"?
NEO
I never could stomach those things.
VOICE OF VISUAL FX
I'm back. I'm about to take over the movie.
he somehow falls ASLEEP and wakes up in his room to answer his PHONE.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
You've been traced, monitored, probed and bugged in every way,
but I decided to call you at your home number anyhow.
TRINITY
I'm going to press the barrel of a big
techno-bazooka into your belly, so relax.
NEO
No prob. I'm cool with outlaw insurgents
doing surgery on me in a moving car.
MORPHEUS
Hi. I'm Morpheus. I'm into derelict buildings.
Have you been told that you're Jesus Christ yet?
NEO
I heard.
MORPHEUS
As the main black guy in the story,
I will now be politically incorrect and offer you drugs.
NEO
Since I have to let you manipulate my thinking
for most of the movie, I'll take them.
VISUAL FX
Ta-da! Center stage is mine!
Bow in awe before me!
A MAINTENANCE ROBOT confronts him.
MAINTENANCE ROBOT
If you don't lie down for your daily full-body shave,
I'll flush you.
NEO
Wow! Did they build personal water slides
for everybody?
MORPHEUS
Welcome to my mysteriously levitating vessel.
Real world gravity doesn't work too well either.
VISUAL FX
I'm still here. Don't you ignore me.
MORPHEUS
This is my crew...
Apoc, Trinity, Cypher, Switch, Tank, Dozer, Mouse.
The ones who will die get the less interesting nicknames.
NEO
What happened to me?
MORPHEUS
Your old life is finished. Now you're in transition.
It's part of the Jesus image. I'll show you.
MORPHEUS
Humans are enslaved by robots. You've come to free them.
They're all lost in cyber-world.
NEO
You're telling me the world of flying submarines,
hunter robots and cyber-humans is reality,
and 9-to-5 city life is the videogame?
MORPHEUS
...and you're Jesus. Makes sense to me.
NEO
Stop the game. I'm going to be sick.
MORPHEUS
Sorry about shaking you up like that,
much as I enjoyed doing it.
to begin his software installation, I mean training.
TANK
Hello. May I pump a truckload of foreign data
into your brain?
NEO
Hey, the amateur surgery didn't bother me. Go for it.
TANK
Have some martial arts training. It consists of watching
a digital mannequin standing in eight poses.
MORPHEUS
Let's try another videogame and see what you've learned.
MORPHEUS
Nyahh, nyahh. Can't hit me.
NEO
The dance music is throwing me off!
MOUSE
Wow! Look at him fight! He's awesome!
SWITCH
Yup. Too bad we never thought of
putting Kung Fu into our own brains.
MORPHEUS
Use the Force!
NEO
I can't. There aren't enough visual effects.
MORPHEUS
I can fix that. Let's jump off a building.
The videogame is RIGGED so that NEO falls trying the same jump,
which is shown in slow motion for MAXIMUM HUMILIATION.
NEO
That boingy pavement was the worst visual effect yet.
VISUAL FX
Watch it, pasty boy, or I'll humiliate you in all your scenes.
CYPHER
Have some of Dozer's moonshine.
It creeps me that the black characters
initiate all the substance abuse.
NEO
Well, the pimp is a white kid.
CYPHER
Anyway, just thought I'd mention that
everything you've been told is wrong.
NEO
Doesn't matter.
I quit believing everybody long ago.
AGENT SMITH
It takes a whole crew of pirate broadcasters to hack in and out of the Matrix,
so how do you secretly just show up alone?
CYPHER
I like virtual steak better than creamed corn,
so I agree to murder all my friends.
MORPHEUS
To your game chairs. We're going in.
TANK
Now for my airline gag,
since I'm sure I'm the first guy ever to think of it.
MORPHEUS
We're in. Love the surroundings.
TRINITY
Maybe our rock star outfits will be inconspicuous this time.
APOC
I was supposed to say my only line somewhere.
Did I miss it?
MORPHEUS
I've managed to confuse you somewhat.
Now Granny Know-It-All will complete the job.
BALD KID
You must realize that there is no spoon.
NEO
What would the real Jesus say to a Zen kid?
GRANNY KNOW-IT-ALL
I've read ahead in the script, so now I'll
mock your ignorance up one side and down the other.
NEO
Big deal. The preschoolers in the audience
are eight jumps ahead of me by now.
MORPHEUS
Time to go. That surely was an errand
worth risking seven lives for.
CYPHER
They've bricked up the windows!
We're trapped like... like something that gets trapped a lot!
NEO
If they can control matter and energy like that,
why not just beam us into prison?
MORPHEUS
Only one way out! Into the bathroom!
NEO
I gotta slide down another toilet pipe?
NEO
I must save him!
TRINITY
No, stupid. It's a videogame, remember?
because the MOVIE COPS forget to chase them.
INT. AN EVEN MORE DILAPIDATED SHOP WITH A RINGING PHONE
NEO
Hello?
NEO
Wrong number.
TRINITY
Gimme that phone. Who is this?
CYPHER
You can't have a Jesus story without a betrayal.
Now I'm going to terminate all your cyber-links
because I'm really cheesed about eating all that creamed corn!
TRINITY
Apoc! Switch! Oh, no!
NEO
That's it? They just drop over with no visual effects?
TANK
You want visual effects?
Take this, scumface!
TANK
Yes, our adversaries are robots, but we keep these
human-killing weapons around anyway.
AGENT SMITH
I hate this place and I hate you!
Hate hate hate!
MORPHEUS
You get pretty emotional for a piece of software.
TANK
They've got Morpheus. We have to yank his plug.
NEO
Can't we just slap him and yell, "Wake up"?
TANK
Effects or no effects, here goes.
NEO
Wait! I gotta save Morpheus, but I can't save anybody! Agh!
Did the real Jesus wallow in self-doubt?
TRINITY
Only in the Scorsese movie.
NEO
Well, our aim is to save a life,
so create me a billion guns for the mission.
AGENT SMITH
Give him the injection!
It's time for a white guy to initiate some drug abuse.
AGENT BROWN
Maybe you'd get answers if you asked him a question
instead of just standing there venting.
TRINITY
Eat teflon, turkeys.
We have hidden wires and you don't.
NEO
Did the real Jesus kill so many bystanders?
TRINITY
To the roof!
AGENT JONES
Insolent fool! Your visual effects are no match for mine!
VISUAL FX
It's my movie. You're all just my puppets.
TRINITY
Dodge this, chump. Oops, another bystander.
NEO
Hey, look! How convenient that people leave
loaded combat helicopters sitting around.
TANK
I just happen to have the right piloting data disk
in my shoebox here.
NEO
Only one way to save Morpheus,
by spraying the whole room with gunfire!
MORPHEUS
Two minutes ago I was dying.
Now I can break chains and leap into aircraft.
NEO
He's been hit!
MORPHEUS
Gee, Visual FX, thanks for stopping me
right in the crossfire!
VISUAL FX
Whine, whine, whine.
Don't forget that I'm the main character.
NEO
The chopper's going down! Jump, Trinity!
MORPHEUS
Aircraft crashing into buildings?
You're on thin political ice, here.
VISUAL FX
Oops.
NEO
Don't worry.
Morphing people and liquid buildings
still haven't attracted any attention.
MORPHEUS
Then let's get to a subway phone so we can get out of here.
Just make sure it's in a run-down setting.
VISUAL FX
Okay, okay. Sorry for getting carried away back there.
AGENT SMITH
Your effects can't help you now!
I'm a computer program with a grudge!
AGENT SMITH
Gotcha, sucker! Now listen up.
The villain always talks in these dramas. It's tradition.
NEO runs from more AGENTS to make a PHONE CALL.
NEO
Hey Tank! You sent me here with all those weapons.
Can't you send me a motorcycle?
TANK
Quick! You know the formula!
Find a dilapidated building with a phone!
right into the muzzle of AGENT SMITH'S gun.
TANK
Oops. Sorry, ace.
MORPHEUS
The robots are attacking, but go ahead and make your love speech.
Ignore our exploding ship.
TRINITY
Now that you're dead I'm going to kiss you,
because you just look so natural.
NEO
Wait a minute. Am I Jesus or Snow White?
TANK
Nobody's whiter.
VISUAL FX
I'm back to help you beat the bad guy.
The directors warned me to behave.
VISUAL FX and NEO neutralize BULLETS and AGENT SMITH.
MORPHEUS discharges the PULSE that destroys
the electronics of EVIL MACHINES but not GOOD MACHINES.
FADE TO: DIGITS scrolling across a COMPUTER DISPLAY.
VOICE OF NEO
Robot overlords take heed!
Someday we'll ALL sit up in our glass toilets
and refuse to be body-shaved!
VOICE OF TELEPHONE
Your call is important to us.
Please stay on the line...
NEO
All right, my gospel message stinks...I didn't redeem anybody...
I make a lousy Jesus. Maybe in the sequel.
VOICE OF TRINITY
I love him.
VOICE OF CYPHER
You know I'm going to kill him.
VOICE OF TRINITY
Wait, this conversation isn't supposed to happen
for another hour.
VOICE OF VISUAL FX
Pay no attention to the people.
I'm the central character in this story.
MOVIE COPS
Raise your hands while we stand in a nice row for you
like the movie lummoxes we are.
and then stops to make another PHONE CALL.
TRINITY
Boss, I think we're in a Keystone movie.
MOVIE COPS
Look at them jump!
Since we can't follow, let's bumble.
She escapes by winning the race to a PHONE BOOTH.
TRANSITION TO the screen of NEO's computer,
which is doing its best research when NEO is ASLEEP.
COMPUTER MESSAGE
Wake up, mister hacker-whiz.
Haven't you heard of color monitors yet?
NEO
Here is your contraband.
Don't tell any of these other guys watching
that you got it from me.
STONER DUDE
You are Jesus Christ. Am I being subtle enough?
STONER CHICK
I think a groggy, pasty, bleary-eyed stranger
would be fun to take partying.
TRINITY
I can take you to Morpheus,
but I'll wait until you are first arrested and bugged.
CARDBOARD BOSS
Your job is to sit in a cube and do nothing.
I expect you to do it on time.
A CELL PHONE is delivered with a call from MORPHEUS.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
They're coming to get you. Do exactly as I say.
NEO
Okay.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Scurry like a crab.
NEO
Righto.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Dive into the conveniently empty office.
NEO
Done.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Now step out the 11th floor window and cling to the sheer glass.
NEO
Uh...
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
Too bad champ. You had your chance.
AGENT SMITH
I'm going to groan every word I say to you
in hopes that it will win your confidence.
NEO
No thanks.
AGENT SMITH
Then I'll give you a toy. Remember "Transformers"?
NEO
I never could stomach those things.
VOICE OF VISUAL FX
I'm back. I'm about to take over the movie.
he somehow falls ASLEEP and wakes up in his room to answer his PHONE.
VOICE OF MORPHEUS
You've been traced, monitored, probed and bugged in every way,
but I decided to call you at your home number anyhow.
TRINITY
I'm going to press the barrel of a big
techno-bazooka into your belly, so relax.
NEO
No prob. I'm cool with outlaw insurgents
doing surgery on me in a moving car.
MORPHEUS
Hi. I'm Morpheus. I'm into derelict buildings.
Have you been told that you're Jesus Christ yet?
NEO
I heard.
MORPHEUS
As the main black guy in the story,
I will now be politically incorrect and offer you drugs.
NEO
Since I have to let you manipulate my thinking
for most of the movie, I'll take them.
VISUAL FX
Ta-da! Center stage is mine!
Bow in awe before me!
A MAINTENANCE ROBOT confronts him.
MAINTENANCE ROBOT
If you don't lie down for your daily full-body shave,
I'll flush you.
NEO
Wow! Did they build personal water slides
for everybody?
MORPHEUS
Welcome to my mysteriously levitating vessel.
Real world gravity doesn't work too well either.
VISUAL FX
I'm still here. Don't you ignore me.
MORPHEUS
This is my crew...
Apoc, Trinity, Cypher, Switch, Tank, Dozer, Mouse.
The ones who will die get the less interesting nicknames.
NEO
What happened to me?
MORPHEUS
Your old life is finished. Now you're in transition.
It's part of the Jesus image. I'll show you.
MORPHEUS
Humans are enslaved by robots. You've come to free them.
They're all lost in cyber-world.
NEO
You're telling me the world of flying submarines,
hunter robots and cyber-humans is reality,
and 9-to-5 city life is the videogame?
MORPHEUS
...and you're Jesus. Makes sense to me.
NEO
Stop the game. I'm going to be sick.
MORPHEUS
Sorry about shaking you up like that,
much as I enjoyed doing it.
to begin his software installation, I mean training.
TANK
Hello. May I pump a truckload of foreign data
into your brain?
NEO
Hey, the amateur surgery didn't bother me. Go for it.
TANK
Have some martial arts training. It consists of watching
a digital mannequin standing in eight poses.
MORPHEUS
Let's try another videogame and see what you've learned.
MORPHEUS
Nyahh, nyahh. Can't hit me.
NEO
The dance music is throwing me off!
MOUSE
Wow! Look at him fight! He's awesome!
SWITCH
Yup. Too bad we never thought of
putting Kung Fu into our own brains.
MORPHEUS
Use the Force!
NEO
I can't. There aren't enough visual effects.
MORPHEUS
I can fix that. Let's jump off a building.
The videogame is RIGGED so that NEO falls trying the same jump,
which is shown in slow motion for MAXIMUM HUMILIATION.
NEO
That boingy pavement was the worst visual effect yet.
VISUAL FX
Watch it, pasty boy, or I'll humiliate you in all your scenes.
CYPHER
Have some of Dozer's moonshine.
It creeps me that the black characters
initiate all the substance abuse.
NEO
Well, the pimp is a white kid.
CYPHER
Anyway, just thought I'd mention that
everything you've been told is wrong.
NEO
Doesn't matter.
I quit believing everybody long ago.
AGENT SMITH
It takes a whole crew of pirate broadcasters to hack in and out of the Matrix,
so how do you secretly just show up alone?
CYPHER
I like virtual steak better than creamed corn,
so I agree to murder all my friends.
MORPHEUS
To your game chairs. We're going in.
TANK
Now for my airline gag,
since I'm sure I'm the first guy ever to think of it.
MORPHEUS
We're in. Love the surroundings.
TRINITY
Maybe our rock star outfits will be inconspicuous this time.
APOC
I was supposed to say my only line somewhere.
Did I miss it?
MORPHEUS
I've managed to confuse you somewhat.
Now Granny Know-It-All will complete the job.
BALD KID
You must realize that there is no spoon.
NEO
What would the real Jesus say to a Zen kid?
GRANNY KNOW-IT-ALL
I've read ahead in the script, so now I'll
mock your ignorance up one side and down the other.
NEO
Big deal. The preschoolers in the audience
are eight jumps ahead of me by now.
MORPHEUS
Time to go. That surely was an errand
worth risking seven lives for.
CYPHER
They've bricked up the windows!
We're trapped like... like something that gets trapped a lot!
NEO
If they can control matter and energy like that,
why not just beam us into prison?
MORPHEUS
Only one way out! Into the bathroom!
NEO
I gotta slide down another toilet pipe?
NEO
I must save him!
TRINITY
No, stupid. It's a videogame, remember?
because the MOVIE COPS forget to chase them.
INT. AN EVEN MORE DILAPIDATED SHOP WITH A RINGING PHONE
NEO
Hello?
NEO
Wrong number.
TRINITY
Gimme that phone. Who is this?
CYPHER
You can't have a Jesus story without a betrayal.
Now I'm going to terminate all your cyber-links
because I'm really cheesed about eating all that creamed corn!
TRINITY
Apoc! Switch! Oh, no!
NEO
That's it? They just drop over with no visual effects?
TANK
You want visual effects?
Take this, scumface!
TANK
Yes, our adversaries are robots, but we keep these
human-killing weapons around anyway.
AGENT SMITH
I hate this place and I hate you!
Hate hate hate!
MORPHEUS
You get pretty emotional for a piece of software.
TANK
They've got Morpheus. We have to yank his plug.
NEO
Can't we just slap him and yell, "Wake up"?
TANK
Effects or no effects, here goes.
NEO
Wait! I gotta save Morpheus, but I can't save anybody! Agh!
Did the real Jesus wallow in self-doubt?
TRINITY
Only in the Scorsese movie.
NEO
Well, our aim is to save a life,
so create me a billion guns for the mission.
AGENT SMITH
Give him the injection!
It's time for a white guy to initiate some drug abuse.
AGENT BROWN
Maybe you'd get answers if you asked him a question
instead of just standing there venting.
TRINITY
Eat teflon, turkeys.
We have hidden wires and you don't.
NEO
Did the real Jesus kill so many bystanders?
TRINITY
To the roof!
AGENT JONES
Insolent fool! Your visual effects are no match for mine!
VISUAL FX
It's my movie. You're all just my puppets.
TRINITY
Dodge this, chump. Oops, another bystander.
NEO
Hey, look! How convenient that people leave
loaded combat helicopters sitting around.
TANK
I just happen to have the right piloting data disk
in my shoebox here.
NEO
Only one way to save Morpheus,
by spraying the whole room with gunfire!
MORPHEUS
Two minutes ago I was dying.
Now I can break chains and leap into aircraft.
NEO
He's been hit!
MORPHEUS
Gee, Visual FX, thanks for stopping me
right in the crossfire!
VISUAL FX
Whine, whine, whine.
Don't forget that I'm the main character.
NEO
The chopper's going down! Jump, Trinity!
MORPHEUS
Aircraft crashing into buildings?
You're on thin political ice, here.
VISUAL FX
Oops.
NEO
Don't worry.
Morphing people and liquid buildings
still haven't attracted any attention.
MORPHEUS
Then let's get to a subway phone so we can get out of here.
Just make sure it's in a run-down setting.
VISUAL FX
Okay, okay. Sorry for getting carried away back there.
AGENT SMITH
Your effects can't help you now!
I'm a computer program with a grudge!
AGENT SMITH
Gotcha, sucker! Now listen up.
The villain always talks in these dramas. It's tradition.
NEO runs from more AGENTS to make a PHONE CALL.
NEO
Hey Tank! You sent me here with all those weapons.
Can't you send me a motorcycle?
TANK
Quick! You know the formula!
Find a dilapidated building with a phone!
right into the muzzle of AGENT SMITH'S gun.
TANK
Oops. Sorry, ace.
MORPHEUS
The robots are attacking, but go ahead and make your love speech.
Ignore our exploding ship.
TRINITY
Now that you're dead I'm going to kiss you,
because you just look so natural.
NEO
Wait a minute. Am I Jesus or Snow White?
TANK
Nobody's whiter.
VISUAL FX
I'm back to help you beat the bad guy.
The directors warned me to behave.
VISUAL FX and NEO neutralize BULLETS and AGENT SMITH.
MORPHEUS discharges the PULSE that destroys
the electronics of EVIL MACHINES but not GOOD MACHINES.
FADE TO: DIGITS scrolling across a COMPUTER DISPLAY.
VOICE OF NEO
Robot overlords take heed!
Someday we'll ALL sit up in our glass toilets
and refuse to be body-shaved!
VOICE OF TELEPHONE
Your call is important to us.
Please stay on the line...
NEO
All right, my gospel message stinks...I didn't redeem anybody...
I make a lousy Jesus. Maybe in the sequel.