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Comment by schappim | Hacker News Reader

The “looks greener” is actually a central part of the filmography (not sure if this is the right word), as the colours are tinted green whenever the characters are in the matrix and shift back when they are in the real world.

Edit: Moved off the dead parent comment

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Yeah - I am sure the Wachowskis are on record talking about the green cast of the scenes that occur in the matrix. It's meant to recall the idea of old green-phosphor monochrome monitors; and I also distinctly remember some discussion about this from the director of photography, maybe in a DVD commentary or something.

The matrix is green-tinted and the real-world is blue-tinted.

ref. https://www.matrixfans.net/movies/the-matrix/wachowski-broth...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdgmNZnLs4

Very cool!

I've seen it many times and had no idea. Mild red-green colorblindness.

As I recall the green tint was added to the second DVD release. The theatrical release had a more balanced color palette.

Edit: Seems that the UHD release removed the green tint as well

https://www.avforums.com/reviews/the-matrix-4k-blu-ray-revie...

Also from paragraph 2 of the article:

> The initial DVD release had a neutral-warm color palette while the 2008 Blu-ray added a heavy green cast to match the sequels. The Matrix's 2018 UHD Blu-ray release apparently hews closer to how the film looked in theaters with a more purple-blue tint

Paragraph 9

> Now The Matrix has been an odd fish in terms of releases on home formats, with a reasonably natural tone to its original almost flagship DVD release back in 1999 (it was one of the first titles that many DVD adopters bought), but - years later - a very different look to its 2004 re-release on DVD. Everything in 'The Matrix' suddenly became really green. This green-tinged 'style' carried on to its Blu-ray release in 2008, where things were dialled back a little, but some sequences were still almost monochromatic in their green bent.

Updated my comment to reference a second dvd release.

That’s odd, I had the first DVD release and I absolutely remember the green tint to all the scenes happening “inside the matrix”. In fact, I want to say they explicitly reference this in the commentary at some point.

I believe it definitely had some green tint / elements to it. Just not quite the "green wash" it got later on.

I don't necessarily trust my memory from 20 years ago, but I do recall both the initial VHS release and the DVD version I got a couple years later both having the green tint. It's one of the things that floored me as an impressionable teenager.

Same.

For the unfamiliar, I can understand ... but as a fan, I can't believe this fact is even in question.

Yes, I think the second release just amped that effect up and added it to more scenes.

> it was one of the first titles that many DVD adopters bought

I remember it being bundled (in the same box) with my first DVD player.

Perhaps "the most DVD movie" [1], second only to "Fight Club" in people's opinions.

[1] https://twitter.com/freemaneric/status/1473337573326180364

Maybe they went heavy on the green for subsequent releases, but according to "The Matrix Revisited", the green tone was an integral part of the filmmaking process (for those interested, it's around the 20min10sec mark).

The green tint was definitely there in the initial DVD release and, presumably, 35mm cinema release. For the sequels they made the tint way more obvious and then regraded the original to match. But the tint was always there.

If the representation of blown-out highlights on Hulu is accurate, something else beyond just color grading has gone wrong. That's cinematographically-relevant detail loss. A lot of people might not be able to put their finger on why that's a change, but most people would experience it as a small but noticeably different tone.

I qualify my statement because there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong between not just the studio and Hulu, but Hulu and my viewing of the images on my screen here.

To clarify, Hulu’s version is fine. HBO Max’s is the one that’s blown-out.

Sorry, yes, thank you.

Everyone in this particular thread should watch the video linked in the footnote of the article. (I had forgotten this post was a link to an article and not the video, and was scratching my head at why people were even having this discussion).

Edit: tl;dr of the video:

- The Matrix had some green tint

- the sequels had even more green tint

- a remaster of The Matrix used the sequels as a reference and remastered The Matrix to be much more green than the theatrical release

- the 4k remaster is less green and looks more like the theatrical release

From the article it looks like on top of that HBO Max somehow got a bad version of the less green 4k version

The clips in the below playlist seem to be from the print used for the original DVD master.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLbdfgY_IhM&list=PLrT4uvwaf6...

Although I only saw the film once in theaters, I watched the DVD religiously, and these clips seem consistent with that version.

Note: The film was shot on Super 35, and cropped to 2.39:1 for theatrical distribution. This is the 16:9 "open matte" version (more information on the top and bottom), probably intended for cable television.

Edit: The clips in the playlist uploaded in 2016 (i.e. clip 1, and clips 6-14) are consistent with the original DVD release. The rest seem to be from some other release.

Seems like this wasn't added until after it was out of theaters.

Why do so many filmmakers go back and mess with classic movies after the fact (Star Wars)?

The confusion I had in understanding which scenes were in the matrix, and which were in the real world, the first time I watched the movie, is a huge part of the movie's appeal to me.

I just rewatched trailers for the matrix and it doesn't play that angle. It's revealed early on in the trailer that the matrix is a simulation and the movie itself is not trying to blur the lines, the matrix being a simulation is an accepted fact by both characters and the viewer.

Maybe I watched DVD trailers though. I remember whatisthematrix and while the concept of a simulation was emphasized and heavily discussed there was no confusion about what is real and what is not. `What is the simulation` though...

With that being said I agree that I rarely see improvements when movie makers revisit their creation (I also have no interests).

I remember only really vague trailers before the movie came out. All centered around the "No one can be told what the matrix is.." line. There was kind of a glut of movies around that time (esp. Sixth Sense and Fight Club) that were trying to disguise a reality-bending secret and The Matrix was definitely one of them in my memory.

Once the movie was out though there were more detailed trailers.

> Edit: Moved off the dead parent comment

How does one move their comments?

Yep, this is certainly noticeable at higher bit-rates, for instance when you watch on a real blu-ray or a raw blu-ray rip. It's incredible how much color depth you lose with x625 encoding even with their purported "10-bit" color depth. My blu-ray library never disappoints even if it feels like 2013 actually loading discs into a player.

Cinematography is the word you're looking for.

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