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A comment on The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video].

Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by FirmwareBurner on Monday June 16, 2025 @09:15AM (#44289214)
Seeing the movie as a kid I totally expect it to be filmed in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, but Sydney never crossed my mind since the shots looks too "North America" to be anything else. Probably because in my mind Sydney is a beach with the opera house and an outback with kangaroos and giant spiders.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by keepamovin on Monday June 16, 2025 @09:26AM (#44289302)
Heh :) Sydney downtown is very beautiful and very city vibe.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by FirmwareBurner on Monday June 16, 2025 @09:55AM (#44289525)
Sounds like something a giant spider would say ;)
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by keepamovin on Monday June 16, 2025 @10:23AM (#44289815)
Ah yes us sydneyspiders - I mean Sydneysiders - we're always looking for delicious - I mean gullible - I mean curious tourists in Sydney, and their dollars. We really don't have enough hehehe! :)
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by dylan604 on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @06:31PM (#44313840)
Especially the sound of the crosswalk signals. Orbital introduced me to them in the 90s, so when I heard in person the first time I had a knowing smile and started to groove to the rest of the track that my brain filled in for me
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by ajxs on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @06:51PM (#44313956)
We call them 'pedestrian crossings' down under! It's been sampled in a few songs actually. The sound is so ingrained in our psyche that you recognise it instantly.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by dylan604 on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @06:58PM (#44314001)
the only one ingrained deeper for is Blade Runner's "walk now"
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by worthless-trash on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @08:01PM (#44314302)
I was surprised to see the pedestrian crossing button right in the centre of the woman in the red dress scene.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by bitwize on Monday June 16, 2025 @10:31AM (#44289915)
The one that really baked my noodle was seeing Melbourne play the role of Boston in Knowing (2009), which it did fairly well if you don't look too closely.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by keepamovin on Monday June 16, 2025 @11:09AM (#44290334)
Like that film, but holy shit I did not know that was Melbourne! No way. Have to go back and watch. Classic Cage hahaha :)

also nice Matrix reference

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by wkat4242 on Monday June 16, 2025 @03:02PM (#44292436)
That's why Sydney was so popular. The CBD has a really American feel but prices and wages are Australian. Fox studios had a huge campus there. Not sure if they still do.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by tim-- on Thursday June 19, 2025 @12:11AM (#44315357)
It's now Disney Studios (https://disneystudiosaustralia.com/) after Disney's acquisition of Fox. There's 9 large sound stages. A large amount of movies are filmed there.

The lease of the land at the time was controversial.

> The rental was $2 million, payable over 40 years. However, the payment date was not specified, and the deal proceeded with an initial $1 per annum peppercorn rental, in return for which the government was obliged to spend $75-80 million on site works for the benefit of Fox

https://archive.cpa.org.au/guardian/2004/1201fox.html

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by wiether on Thursday June 19, 2025 @05:29AM (#44316912)
IIRC that topic was discussed in an episode of Utopia

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3163562/

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by dehrmann on Thursday June 19, 2025 @02:13AM (#44315931)
Paramount also used to have a presence there.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by throwaway992673 on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @06:58PM (#44313999)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider

The males like to wander around aimlessly looking for mates.

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by jeffwilcox on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @07:14PM (#44314075)
Plus the Wachowskis have Chicago street names throughout.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by magarnicle on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @07:29PM (#44314132)
You have to go a long way to get to the "outback" from Sydney, though Hollywood has other ideas. I laughed in Mission Impossible 2 when they set up their base in the desert for their operation in Sydney Harbour. Just a short 500km (at least) helicopter ride away.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by Wololooo on Thursday June 19, 2025 @06:02AM (#44317076)
You remind me of a movie that I can't remember the name off but it was a low budget American spy movie that was shot in Europe through European subsidies targeted at getting work in Europe for cinema crews.

One shot is supposedly happening in an American city, but it's shot somewhere in Brussels, where they discuss people hiding, then you got a transition shot where now they are supposed to be thousands of km away with said people hiding, and the second shot is filmed in the building across the street.

Many other shots were also combination of places that I knew extremely well, which really was funny at times because once you locate everything it makes the whole situation much more comedic.

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by throwaway422432 on Thursday June 19, 2025 @11:39PM (#44324517)
That can make for a very weird viewing experience.

"Oddball" was filmed in an Australian town I grew up in. There was a chase scene that combined and compressed multiple locations. In one particular scene you are looking at an extra with a backdrop of part of the main street, but the location he is looking at (supposedly directly across the road) is actually about 1/2km away.

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by alex1138 on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @07:39PM (#44314181)
Neo fights giant Kangaroo Smith
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by Calwestjobs on Thursday June 19, 2025 @02:17AM (#44315946)
i would watch neo nazi vs kangaroo fight.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by caz2000 on Thursday June 19, 2025 @10:50AM (#44319203)
There's roos (or at least Wallabies) that graze on a big golf course on the other side of Sydney Harbour. They've been known to make it onto the highway and cross the bridge into the city - just near where the red dress scene was filmed.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by dehrmann on Thursday June 19, 2025 @02:12AM (#44315922)
When I visited Sydney, it felt like NYC with LA weather and cars on the wrong side of the road.

I knew it was filmed there, but hadn't put together that it was filmed around the corner from where I stayed, and I walked by multiple filming locations.

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by femto on Thursday June 19, 2025 @03:19AM (#44316308)
The giant spider is actually a thing. Earlier this year, the "Newcastle Funnel Web" was identified as a new species: bigger and deadlier than the Sydney Funnel Web Spider.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-14/researchers-prove-thr...

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by jazdw on Thursday June 19, 2025 @10:38AM (#44319104)
I used to catch them in my backyard as a kid, never saw one that big though!
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by cjrp on Thursday June 19, 2025 @05:55AM (#44317050)
Didn't they have to reverse the footage of cars (like when Neo is climbing outside out of his office building) so they look like they're driving on the right-hand side?
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by Andrex on Thursday June 19, 2025 @08:43AM (#44318144)
All that work and the elevator still says Lift.
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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by Jedd on Thursday June 19, 2025 @09:44AM (#44318636)
(Sydney-sider here)

I have a vague memory of people being asked to drive around with a passenger, with the driver holding the wheel down load (twenty to four?) - while the passenger held their arms up high, as if they were holding a wheel.

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Re:The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Syd... by caz2000 on Thursday June 19, 2025 @10:48AM (#44319192)
The Wachowskis have said they chose Sydney specifically because it reminded them of Chicago, which is where they wanted to film. That said I think it surprised everyone in Sydney how it ended up looking on film.
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