Goofs for
The Matrix (1999)

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• Continuity: In the first scene in which Neo appears, we see him from above, sleeping in front of his computer. The keyboard he is using is a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro with the atypical curved key configuration. When messages begin appearing on his screen, he tries to stop them by hitting various keys, but the close-up of the keys show keys from a standard keyboard that are clearly not the keys on a Natural Keyboard Pro.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo (Anderson) is first handed the FedEx envelope, he moves his hand to the corner to open it - then the camera shifts, and he moves his hand to the corner to open it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo first meets Morpheus, they shake hands. We see Morpheus from behind, and his left arm is behind his back. Then we see Morpheus from the front, and his left arm is straight down at his side. Then we see Morpheus from the back again, and his arm is once again behind his back.
  
  

• Continuity: After Trinity crashes through the window, tumbles down the stairs and then points her guns back toward the window, we cut to a close shot of the top of the stairs showing a hanging light fixture swinging back and forth. A few seconds before, during an over-the-shoulder shot from Trinity's perspective, the fixture is perfectly still. The sound and image imply that it did not start swinging until she reached the bottom of the stairs.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo has hundreds of acupuncture needles in his body, needles disappear from his head. The comments on DVD indicate that all of the needles were a prosthetic device except for the ones in his head. The real needles are there when the camera looks at him from the side, but then disappear as the camera moves in.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus attacks Smith to save Neo, Morpheus head-butts Smith and knocks his glasses off (camera angle behind Morpheus). But then there is a shot from Smith's POV and his glasses are on again, then the camera shifts to Morpheus' view and they're gone again. Also note that when Morpheus and Smith are struggling on the floor the glasses are on Smiths's right side of his head but then you see a part of the temple (this is the portion of a pair of glasses that fits over the ear) of the glasses on Smith's left in to top corner of the frame. Don't blink or you'll miss it!
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: After Morpheus is rescued from the Agents, the blood and marks on his face are gone. He's been under a huge stream of water that probably washed them away.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end of the subway fight scene, Agent Smith throws Neo into a wall after which he falls onto the rails along with debris from the wall, but when Neo backflips onto the platform, the debris is neatly positioned by the wall.
  
  
• Continuity: During the lobby shootout, Neo cartwheels while firing an M-16 rifle at some guards, however, one shot shows Neo firing in completely the wrong direction.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo passes through the metal detector before the lobby shootout, the side profile shot as he is stopped by the guard has him with his jacket halfway open. He is clearly unarmed as he is wearing a normal belt and there are no guns under his jacket. However, he then opens his jacket from a completely closed state to reveal that he is wearing a fully loaded gun belt with both weapons and ammo.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Subway fight scene between Neo and Smith, Neo's hair turns from dusty to non-dusty, and back again several times.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith in the subway station, after Neo incapacitates the agent and flips out of the way of the oncoming train, you can see where the wire harness connects to his back. You can also see one of the wires visible by his wrist.
  
  
• Continuity: In the subway fight scene Smith throws Neo through a wooden wall of some sort. When Smith grabs Neo's leg and pulls him out you can clearly see that it is Neo's stunt double.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Neo shots his whole ammo at his first Agent on the rooftop, he throws his guns away, but in the next famous bullet-time scene there are no guns in sight.
  
  
• Continuity: During the lobby shootout, Trinity sneaks up on a soldier who is reloading and kicks his SPAS-12 Shotgun out of his hands. In some shots, the guard is still holding the gun, but in other shots, he isn't. However, when Trinity knocks him out and he hits the floor, the SPAS-12 clearly is still in his hands.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Neo meets Trinity for the first time in the nightclub she is close to him talking in his ear. Even though she pauses between sentences the shot from the back of Trinity shows that her jaw is still moving during the pauses.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the bit when Trinity's helicopter is crashing, right after Neo says "Trinity!" there is a shot of the helicopter in slow motion falling and disappearing under the ledge of the building Neo is standing on in the foreground, with the building that it's going to crash into behind. However, the helicopter is not reflected in the building's windows.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus is running towards the helicopter after Neo decimated the room with a minigun, Agent Smith walks in and fires his weapon through the wall, hoping to hit him. He shoots at a downward angle, but when we see the bullets pass by in slow motion, they are parallel with the floor.
  
  
• Continuity: When Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus, he has his hands on his head, his index finger is in front of his ear in the shot from behind, but in the shot from the other direction, his index finger is behind his ear.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is being interrogated by the agents, Agent Smith plops a folder on the table. When he opens it, there are no pages on the back of the cover. When the camera shifts as Agent Smith is looking through the pages, we see several pages on the back of the cover that Agent Smith never placed there.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Neo is fighting the agent in the subway scene, they shoot at each other in bullet time. Though there are bullets coming out of the pistols, the actions of the pistols (the top part of the gun that slides back to allow the spent cartridge to spring out of the barrel) are not moving to let the pistol reload. In addition, there is no recoil.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus and Neo are in the Agent Training program, the first shot of Neo you don't see a dove in the reflective glass behind him, in the second shot you see one.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo drops the phone, the first time you see the phone falling, there is a parade marching in the street below. Cut immediately back to Neo, the street is empty.
  
  
• Continuity: Numerous differences between sunglass reflections and the surroundings.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Neo is rescuing Trinity from the falling helicopter, he slides across the roof of a building. When he reaches the edge, his foot hits the block causing it to move, but in a way consistent with a real block whose grout is imperfect; after all, that's a rather large force.
  
  
• Continuity: After Neo is shot by Agent Smith, Trinity leans close to whisper. Her hair begins to fall over her face. Cut to another angle and her hair is back in place again.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before the door to the Oracle's apartment opens, Morpheus has his glasses on. After the door opens and the camera angle switches, his glasses are in his left hand (visible after Neo crosses in front). Presumably he snatched them off in the same move that instantly took his arms from a 90-degree angle to straight down.
  
  
• Continuity: Cypher's cigar changes hands in the restaurant.
  
  
• Continuity: As agent Smith is fighting Morpheus, he hits him several times with his head. Smith's sunglasses are on-off-on between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The piece of meat Cypher eats at the restaurant changes from one shot to the next.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The Massive Attack song "Dissolved Girl" playing in Neo's headphones is track 6 on the album, not track 5, and the timing on the counter is off in relation to the actual song. Given Neo's equipment, it could well have been a homemade custom CD.
  
  
• Continuity: When his boss, Mr. Reinhart, is lecturing Thomas Anderson, Anderson's hands are in front when seen from outside and from the rear, and behind him when seen from Mr. Reinhart's desk.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus and Neo move from the dojo to the jump program, the shot from their viewpoint looking down shows them landing far from any roof structures, on a building much higher than any nearby. The next shot of Neo shows them to be right next to a structure, on a building about as tall as one right across the street.
  
  
• Continuity: While Neo is on the way to the Oracle, his sideburns change length and shape.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus is showing Neo the construct, there are no shadows (even under their feet). However, when Neo wants out, he steps back and there are shadows under his feet.
  
  
• Continuity: When Trinity learns how to fly the helicopter, she is given instructions to fly a B-212 (which is what's shown) with a Bell JetRanger image on the computer.
  
  
• Continuity: As the team prepares to visit the Oracle, we see Tank "loading them up" pressing buttons on the various keyboards around him. Before the last cut, his right hand is up, pressing buttons while his left hand is down. When we cut to the shot above Tank, his left arm is up and his right arm is down.
  
  
• Continuity: The gun Neo is handed as the police attack is a Sig-Sauer, but in later shots he is using a Glock, and then a Sig again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The chain of ammunition for the gun in the helicopter does not feed directly into the gun; it goes through a feeding mechanism between the ammo box and the gun. Further, the shells that drop are indeed spent; they have a bottleneck shape that confuses some viewers.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the fight scene in the subway, as the Agent is about to punch through the concrete post, the section to be punched out is clearly visible.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "dodge this" scene, Trinity's gun changes from a Beretta 92F to a Beretta 84F.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo backflips out of the train's way, the distance between him and the train changes.
  
  
• Continuity: After Neo steals a man's cellular phone and the agents shoot at him, we see him running down an alley with the back of his shirt untucked from his pants. As he kicks in the door, his shirt has tucked itself back into his pants.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the rescue of Morpheus, at one point Trinity is seen to use both hands in controlling the flight stick of the helicopter. While a helicopter normally requires use of two sticks to control, in the kind of emergency situation shown, the collective (controlling up/down motion) can be temporarily ignored.
  
  
• Continuity: Blood on Neo's mouth as the subway approaches.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is in the old Lincoln with Trinity, Switch, and Apoc, Trinity says, "Apoc, lights." A close-up of the light switch follows. The external lights should be off because the switch is all the way in, yet it is night and the lights have been shown to be on. Apoc then pulls the switch halfway out, which would turn on the exterior running lights only, not the interior lights. He should've turned the switch, not pulled it.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: On Neo's introduction to the Construct, Morpheus jacks him in, then shows up in the Construct himself almost immediately, far quicker than he could have jacked in himself. But it's quite possible Neo was held in some kind of limbo until Morpheus was ready to join him.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is interrogated by the agents, the reflection in Agent Smith's glasses do not correspond to the action in the editing. For instance, we see Neo standing in one shot, but the reflection in Agent Smith's glasses shows Neo sitting in the next shot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is flushed from his cubicle and fished up with the claw from a hatch in the Nebuchadnezzar he is passed out. But as he enters the ship he clearly moves his feet to avoid hitting the rim of the hatch.
  
  
• Continuity: When Morpheus escapes the military building he snaps his handcuffs but they remain on. When Neo grabs Morphous, in mid air, no handcuffs are visible. The handcuffs re-appear when Neo drops Morpheus onto one hand.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo opens fire from the helicopter, and the glass begins to break, none of the three agents is visible (though they should be) and the chair in which Morpheus should be sitting can be seen to be empty.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Neo sits at his desk and receives the envelope with the phone in it, a crew member's hand is leaning on the left corner of his desk. (VHS version)
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is being bugged the progression of the bug is inconsistent between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: As Morpheus introduces Neo to the Construct, his glasses are completely dark. The following shot they suddenly turn highly reflective. This was because, for that shot, the glasses were painted black to avoid the cameraman from being reflected in them.
  
  
• Continuity: After Neo is brought into the real world, Tank comes to introduce himself; while they're talking, the strap on Tank's right shoulder repeatedly jumps from the middle of his shirt sleeve to the edge between shots.
  
  
• Factual errors: An error in language really, the Oracle at Delphi (in Greece) prophesied with the words 'Know Thyself' above the entrance to the Temple of Apollo situated there. But these words were in Greek, 'Gnothi se auton', not the Latin appearing on the sign in the movie. It is incongruous to change the language for the film as the classical reference to The Oracle is then obscured for no reason.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo gives Agent Smith the finger, the position of his hand changes between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Trinity is wearing a minidress over her tank top and vinyl pants that disappears when the group is first shown inside the wet-wall.
  
  
• Continuity: In the building the group returns to after seeing the Oracle, smoke appears around the hardline before it's cut by the agents (or by one of their minions). Also, the amount of smoke is considerably more than wires that size could produce unless they were already on fire.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Morpheus fights Agent Smith in the dilapidated bathroom, Agent Smith knocks him over onto an old toilet. Before Morpheus's head hits the toilet, the outline of the section which is about to be "knocked out" is visible. Also, the toilet can be seen to bend and wobble as Morpheus falls onto it, revealing it to be made of rubber (or at least something other than porcelain).
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo meets Trinity, Apoc, and Switch for the first time in the car, Trinity opens the car door, but when we cut back to Neo, she opens the door again.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the gun fight to save Morpheus, Neo is shooting a 9mm machine pistol but spent rounds are from a 5.56mm weapon.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo is flushed from his cubicle and picked up by the claw, all the fingers are working, when the claw is shown again in the ship, one of the fingers is clearly folded in a way that would make it impossible to assume the shape required to pick up Neo.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Morpheus takes Neo to meet the Oracle he reaches for the doorknob. The doorknob reflects Morpheus reaching out to touch it, but you can also see a camera underneath his coat.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tank is about to shoot Cypher, the camera changes from showing Tank to Cypher. When the camera is on Cypher, you can see it is his stunt double.
  
  
• Continuity: When Smith surprises Neo in room 303 and shoots Neo in the chest, the gun is shown, from above, being fired in slow motion. The shell expelled and the one coming from below are clearly blanks, indicated by the crinkled front of the shell designed to hold the packing and powder in until fired.
  
  
• Factual errors: No guns in this movie can be fired as fast as they are. The bullets can be seen flying in bullet time and the action flies back, but the action wouldn't fly back until the bullet was through the target and wouldn't go that fast.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the initial release of the movie on VHS tape, when Neo gets the mobile phone from the FedEx courier to talk to Morphius for the first time, a crew member's hand and forearm are clearly visible in the background. This was corrected in subsequent releases on both VHS and DVD.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scenes after Neo lands on the roof from the helicopter, you see the helicopter in the background with the main rotors spinning. In the next shot, Neo's back is to the camera with the shadow of the helicopter on the roof of the building, but there are no helicopter rotors fixed, or spinning.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The doorknob at the Oracle's apartment is installed backward. The screws on the outside of the door. Seen clearly with the camera reflecting when Neo reaches for it.
  
  
• Continuity: The name of the software company Neo works at is spelled "METACORTEX" on the outside of the building, but a sign inside the building has it spelled "META CORTECHS". Featurettes suggest that the name was changed to avoid an expensive legal issue; evidently one of the signs was missed.
  
  
• Factual errors: Morpheus specifies the human body generates 25,000 BTUs of body heat. The human body is constantly outputting heat into the environment so he should specify the rate of energy transfer rather than a total amount of energy being transferred. Or he should specify how much time it takes for a human body to output 25,000 BTUs in order for any claims, regarding how much energy is extracted from humans, to be meaningful.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The reason why the machines use humans (a power source) makes no sense from a scientific point of view. The useful energy extracted from the humans would necessarily be equal to or less than the energy expended in keeping them alive, even before we consider the energy expended in running the Matrix. An alternative is provided in the novelization and the spin-off short story "Goliath": the machines use human brains as computer components, to run "sentient programs" (the Agents and various characters in the sequels) and to solve scientific problems. Fans continue to debate the discrepancy, but there is no official explanation.
  
  
• Continuity: During the chase scene at the end of the movie, Neo steals a phone from a man in a black suit. As he runs off, the man starts shouting and pointing at him. When we see the man from behind, although he's still shouting in the same voice, the actor is clearly Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith, with his gray suit and different hair cut. The sound effect to indicate the transformation into Agent Smith isn't played until quite a few seconds after the change of actor and costume.
  
  
• Continuity: When Neo enters the Matrix for the first time on the Nebuchadnezzar with Morpheus, as he sits in the chair we clearly see Trinity lock his feet in place. But when Neo pulls himself out of the Matrix during that same visit, he jumps out of the chair and no one can be seen releasing his feet.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In one shot where Neo fires the chain gun at the Agents, one jumps out of harm's way while firing his pistol. While there is a flash, the pistol's action does not go back and there is no recoil like there should be, revealing it to be added in post-production.
  
  
• Factual errors: On the roof of the building in which Morpheus is being held, Trinity asks for a "pilot program for a P-212 helicopter"... the helicopter on Tank's screen appears to be the correct model, but the gunship they actually use is a Vietnam-era Huey.
  
  

• Factual errors: SPOILER: When Smith shoots Neo outside room 303, Neo hits the wall and there is a blood smear on the wall but no bullet holes - a desert eagle would go right through Neo and in to the wall.
  
  

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