Matrix digital rain, or Matrix code, is the computer code featured in the Ghost in the Shell series and the Matrix series. The falling green code is a way of representing the activity of the simulated reality environment of the Matrix on screen by kinetic typography. All four Matrix movies, as well as the spin-off The Animatrix episodes, open with the code. It is a characteristic mark of the franchise, similar to the opening crawl featured in the Star Wars franchise.
In the film, the code that comprises the Matrix itself is frequently represented as downward-flowing green characters. This code uses a custom typeface designed by Simon Whiteley, [1] which includes mirror images of half-width kana characters and Western Latin letters and numerals. [2] In a 2017 interview at CNET, he attributed the design to his wife, who comes from Japan, and added, "I like to tell everybody that The Matrix's code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes". [3]
The effect resembles that of older generation green screen displays of monochrome phosphorescent computer monitors. [4] One predecessor of the digital rain exists in a "code-scene" of the movie Meteo , a Hungarian experimental-pop culture movie from 1990. The 1995 cyberpunk film Ghost in the Shell , a strong influence on The Matrix, [5] [6] features opening credits similar to the digital rain.
No official version of the code's typeface actually used in the Matrix trilogy and in the website for the game Path of Neo has been released. Several imitations have been made, mostly in the form of screensavers.
Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen named a track "Digital Rain", in honour of the movie, on his 2010 album Victims of the Modern Age by his band Star One.
The effect also inspired the creation of many unofficial Matrix screensavers, including the "GL Matrix" mode in XScreenSaver, [7] [8] and in the cmatrix program for Unix-like systems. [9]
Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, and is set in mid-21st century Japan.
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in the Matrix film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano, and depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers the truth, he joins a rebellion against the machines along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.
Jamie Werner Zawinski, commonly known as jwz, is an American computer programmer, blogger, and impresario. He is best known for his role in the creation of Netscape Navigator, Netscape Mail, Lucid Emacs, Mozilla.org, and XScreenSaver. He is also the proprietor of DNA Lounge, a nightclub and live music venue in San Francisco.
A screensaver is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT or plasma computer monitors. Though most modern monitors are not susceptible to this issue, screensaver programs are still used for other purposes. Screensavers are often set up to offer a basic layer of security by requiring a password to re-access the device. Some screensaver programs also use otherwise-idle computer resources to do useful work, such as processing for volunteer computing projects.
The Animatrix is a 2003 American-Japanese adult animated science-fiction anthology film produced by the Wachowskis. The anime compiles nine animated short films, detailing the backstory of The Matrix film series, in addition to providing side stories that expand the universe and tie into the film series.
Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984), Angel's Egg (1985), Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993), and Ghost in the Shell (1995). He also holds the distinction of directing the first ever OVA, Dallos (1983). As a writer, Oshii has worked as a screenwriter, and occasionally as a manga writer and novelist. His most notable works as a writer include the manga Kerberos Panzer Cop (1988–2000) and its feature film adaptation Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999).
The Matrix is an American cyberpunk media franchise consisting of four feature films, beginning with The Matrix (1999) and continuing with three sequels, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections (2021). The first three films were written and directed by the Wachowskis and produced by Joel Silver. The screenplay for the fourth film was written by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, was directed by Lana Wachowski, and was produced by Grant Hill, James McTeigue, and Lana Wachowski. The franchise is owned by Warner Bros., which distributed the films along with Village Roadshow Pictures. The latter, along with Silver Pictures, are the two production companies that worked on the first three films.
XScreenSaver is a free and open-source collection of 240+ screensavers for Unix, macOS, iOS and Android operating systems. It was created by Jamie Zawinski in 1992 and is still maintained by him, with new releases coming out several times a year.
Trinity is a fictional character in the Matrix franchise. She is portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss in the films. In the gameplay segments of Path of Neo, she is voiced by Jennifer Hale. Trinity first appears in the 1999 film The Matrix.
Screen burn-in, image burn-in, ghost image, or shadow image, is a permanent discoloration of areas on an electronic visual display such as a cathode-ray tube (CRT) in an older computer monitor or television set. It is caused by cumulative non-uniform use of the screen.
Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 adult animated neo-noir cyberpunk action thriller film directed by Mamoru Oshii and adapted by frequent Oshii collaborator Kazunori Itō. The film is based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow. It stars the voices of Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka, and Iemasa Kayumi. It is a Japanese-British international co-production between Kodansha, Bandai Visual and Manga Entertainment, with animation provided by Production I.G.
Digital Café was a new media company founded in early 1991 by Dean Hyers and Mike Koenigs. It operated for 7 years independently in St. Paul before being acquired in October 1998 as a new Minneapolis-based division of Campbell Mithun Esty specializing in programming and design for special-market advertising similar to Black Widow Games. In 1995, Hyers and Koenigs formed a sister company to Digital Café called Digital Entertainment as a joint venture with Navarre Corporation. Digital Entertainment was then sold to Navarre Corporation in 1996.
The Samsung SPH-N270 or Matrix phone is a bar style mobile phone released in 2003, made to resemble the phone used in The Matrix Reloaded. The design crew of the Matrix worked closely with Samsung to develop a phone whose features and release date would coincide with the movie. The SPH-N270 was not intended as a mainstream phone for everyday use. Instead, it was marketed solely to fans of the series as a piece of rare, high quality merchandise.
A monochrome monitor is a type of computer monitor in which computer text and images are displayed in varying tones of only one color, as opposed to a color monitor that can display text and images in multiple colors. They were very common in the early days of computing, from the 1960s through the 1980s, before color monitors became widely commercially available. They are still widely used in applications such as computerized cash register systems, owing to the age of many registers. Green screen was the common name for a monochrome monitor using a green "P1" phosphor screen; the term is often misused to refer to any block mode display terminal, regardless of color, e.g., IBM 3279, 3290.
The IBM 5151 is a 12" transistor–transistor logic (TTL) monochrome monitor, shipped with the original IBM Personal Computer for use with the IBM Monochrome Display Adapter. A few other cards were designed to work with it, such as the Hercules Graphics Card.
Japanese cyberpunk refers to cyberpunk fiction produced in Japan. There are two distinct subgenres of Japanese cyberpunk: live-action Japanese cyberpunk films, and cyberpunk manga and anime works.
In the denouement [of The Thirteenth Floor], Douglas Hall simply crests a hill to discover that what he had thought was the real world has, beyond this point, yet to be constructed. In lieu of landscape, only crude phosphor-green polygons, the basic units of video graphics rendering, in the primal monochrome of an old CRT. The raw material of the simulation is even more basic in The Matrix – machine language itself, in the same familiar green...
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