I strongly disagree, Matrix was very much a product of its time, if it had released a decade before or a decade after it would not have had the same impact.
In the 80s as a general rule people didn’t know of the internet nor were they very computer savvy.
In the late 00s cellphones started to be ubiquitous and people were using broadband almost exclusively.
So there was only a small period of time when people were familiar with the idea of telephone lines carrying data, which is a core concept of the movie (exiting the Matrix through your cellphone or laptop is a lot less cool and less prone to plot hooks).
Not to mention that the 90s were extremely gothic and grimdark about the future. I don’t think a movie that the base premise is in the future humans are enslaved to machines and hooked to a large simulation to keep them from realizing they’re slaves would work in any time period besides the 90s.
It’s for sure a product of its time, but it really doesn’t feel like a 1999 movie. Around that time we had
- Sixth sense
- American beauty
- Eyes wide shut
- Being John Malkovich
- Fight Club
Matrix has such a stark level of visual and thematic modernity compared to those. Maybe Fight Club comes near, but the other movies look like they’re from a different decade.
There was also that short sliver of the late 90s through early 2000s where the slick black trenchcoat and sunglasses look was considered unironically cool.
The Matrix, Blade, Underworld, and Equilibrium all being in this era. Any movie where characters dress like this to be cool and it isn’t treated with at least a wink to the audience probably either came from this time or is a sequel to something from this time.
Agreed with all that, but still, don’t forget how mind blowing it was in 1999. One of the only movies I ever saw twice in the theaters, two nights in a row even.
Even the trailers were wild. First time we saw one in the theater my gf and I looked at each other like, “What the fuck was that all about?!”
The Matrix was to science fiction in 1999 about what Star Wars was in 1977, so far ahead of the game it was like nothing before it.
