102

All the movies of the Matrix trilogy have this distinct greenish tint during most of the scenes. Though it can inferred that the greenish tint denotes the matrix, but I want to know why "greenish"? What is distinct about green that makes it suitable for this story? In other words what does it resemble?

Napoleon Wilson
  • 58,981
  • 64
  • 338
  • 660
Ankit
  • 22,369
  • 39
  • 120
  • 206
  • 3
    Notice that across the trilogy, scenes in the "real world" all have a blue tint, providing contrast against happenings in the virtual world. – whatsisname Sep 02 '14 at 19:59
  • 4
    Just a quick note that this was actually not so clear cut in the original release of the first movie. The green tint was added to more scenes and increased in others when the movie was re-released in the Matrix trilogy box set. See http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/the-matrix-visual-comparison.html for more information and examples. – trlkly Sep 02 '14 at 22:02

6 Answers6

120

The green tint is suggestive of the early monochrome cathode monitors, a piece of imagery associated with early computing:

enter image description here

The Wachowski's wanted to create a mood palette, so they could cross cut between the Matrix and the Real world and an audience could immediately identify where the action was occuring through the use of such a colour scheme.

John Smith Optional
  • 38,504
  • 11
  • 147
  • 220
  • 5
    Fun fact this monitor from 1981 had an orange display, the greener displays are "newer": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display#mediaviewer/File:Platovterm1981.jpg – invalid_id Sep 01 '14 at 11:44
  • 28
    Maybe worth mentioning: one inspiration for The Matrix was Ghost in the Shell, which also had a green color scheme. – Oliver_C Sep 01 '14 at 12:49
  • 4
    And I would in turn add that the rather contrastless upto dull colouring scheme of the in-Matrix scenes also added to its unrealistic and sterile feeling. – Napoleon Wilson Sep 01 '14 at 13:13
  • 2
    @Oliver_C Additional fun fact: The movie Avalon by Mamoru Oshii (same director as for Ghost in the Shell) had a orange (yellow? sepia?) tinge throughout, in all layers of the depicted "reality". – David Tonhofer Sep 01 '14 at 16:55
  • 2
    @invalid_id I think you mean (this plasma display of 1983)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display#1983]. On the other hand, the (VT220 terminal)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT220] terminal, an improved VT100, was also introduced in 1983, and Wikipedia says: "To meet the needs of various national regulatory agencies [citation needed], the VT220 was available with CRTs that used white, green, or amber phosphors." – David Tonhofer Sep 01 '14 at 17:00
  • @invalid_id Then there was the Commodore PET that had a green phosphor screen in '79. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET italic"In 1979, Commodore replaced the original PET 2001 with an improved model known as the 2001-N (the N was short for "New"). The new machine used a standard green-phosphor monitor in place of the light blue in the original 2001" – MickyT Sep 01 '14 at 23:26
  • I remember those. They gave you an incredible headache... – Dennis Sep 02 '14 at 03:33
  • Great examples. Found an even older one, apperently color displays were first commercially available in 1954! The first commercial (1922) crt display was monochrome and green: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_display_technology – invalid_id Sep 02 '14 at 06:01
  • Another fun fact: Scenes inside the matrix have the green tint you mentioned, but scenes in the real world tend to have a blue tint with red accents, and when machine plug into the matrix they are gold/yellow as well as the machine city at the end of the third movie. – Kevin Sep 02 '14 at 13:23
  • 1
    Green & Black and also got Amber & Black. Oh boy was I happy when I got my first Graphics Card (not Plug & Play) It was a Hercules card and was beautiful Sharp White on Black with grey scale graphics. Could also play CGA games on it. I had it till I got my first EGA card (16 Colours my man) ;-) – AquaAlex Sep 02 '14 at 16:41
  • Haven't seen the movies in years, but doesn't the original film begin with camera flying through green flowing text during the opening credits, then zoom out to reveal the green text on Neo's monitor? A combined introduction to the Matrix concept and blatant reference to the traditional green monitors already discussed. – brichins Sep 02 '14 at 16:48
  • @invalid_id - Not quite. The 3270 terminals, commonly used with IBM mainframes, were 'green screen' when introduced in 1971. – MrWonderful Sep 02 '14 at 20:11
  • I remember old days and nights in the university campus, with people programming on these green screen computers. Back then, internet and Windows were in their infancy. When I asked why people prefered these ugly computers over Windows, they answered that with them they could access the system and do some hacking and real programming. At Matrix, I link the greenish tint to that "access the system" drive. – Giuseppe Oct 17 '15 at 11:55
  • since cyberpunk films were a bit of an influence it could be argued that crypto-anarchism (even if writers/directors haven't stated so directly) plays a role too in the greenish tint, at two levels: at a political-rebelious-philosophical level, and as a monochrome aesthetic component of programmer's world where unix-like-terminals prevail over graphic window environments. – nilon May 22 '16 at 00:29
  • 1
    Technically correct, but not sure how it got so many votes without a citation – underscore_d May 28 '16 at 19:22
24

This was discussed by the notoriously secretive Wachowskis in one of the very few interviews they did (at the insistence of their distributor) in order to promote The Matrix.

WachowskiBros: One of the things we tried to do with the Neb for when we were shooting “in the real world” was use long lenses to separate the humans from the backgrounds as opposed to when we shot the Matrix we used short lenses to place the humans in specific deep spaces. We also tinted all of the lights blue in the “real world” and green in the Matrix.

...

Spark: What made you decide on the green tint for being in the Matrix?

WachowskiBros: It was a whole motif inspired by the phosphorous green of old PC’s.

Community
  • 1
18

I like the answer @JohnSmithOptional gave. Also, the directors have explained that they thought the color blue was too happy/cheerful, so they chose to make the sky within the Matrix green. The one time that bright blue is used is in the last half hour of the 3rd movie: a ship flies way up above the clouds, in the Real World, and there's a moment of beautiful blue sky. I think Trinity or someone gasps. Then they fall back through the clouds into the darkness to battle the Machines.

(I'm sorry I can't cite the source where the directors said that, but I'm SURE I've heard or read it. Might have been on the DVD bonus material.)

BrettFromLA
  • 23,644
  • 20
  • 84
  • 149
5

I have an additional reason to add (though I agree that the primary one is due to the greenish tint of computer screens like VT100s). The physical city where they shot The Matrix, Sydney, is also known as the Land of Oz (Oz, short for Aussies, short for Australia) and much of the city uses green marble as a tribute to the Emerald City of Oz.

This made much of the shooting of the scenes within the Matrix already inherit a greenish hue (think of the twins and the gov't lobby scenes). I suspect the Wachowskis might have been subtly conscious of this. Green probably just felt right to them for many reasons and it certainly plays perfectly into the movie as a whole.

user336828
  • 151
  • 1
  • 2
  • Now that's interesting. I did not know that. Speaking of which; http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices/2012/07/adams-marble-bar/ –  May 15 '16 at 23:24
0

There is far more symbolism in the Matrix than most people realize. The green tint is symbolic of the basis of a system of control. It permeates our world today. Those who control its issuance have total control over just about everything - including our governments and political process. It is the lie - the nightmare - that the vast majority are unaware they are a willing participant in.

A. Greenspan
  • 21
-3

All the above answers are ignorantly incorrect. The tint is green because it was a rush job and the green screen studio colour bled onto characters and props, so the adjusted with some colour tinting so that cg and real should blend seamlessly.

However with the first matrix was a lot less greenish because they didn't rush for the money, worked out the lighting like professionals and took their time to do a good job.

A similar thing can be noticed on Lord of the rings, the first one done well and the other two rushed and looks green.

Shimon Ben LouLou
  • 21
  • 9
    Do you have any sources to back any of that up at all? – Nick Coad Sep 29 '15 at 06:27
  • 1
    @gnack: I don't know about "rushed," but chroma key bleed over can be a difficult problem to tackle for short shoots let alone a whole movie. Giving a green wash to the whole frame does in fact serve to hide some of the problems this would cause. So I think this poster is not correct, but the green tint was a great bit of serendipity: it fixes a technical problem and adds a ton of symbolic context at the same time. – Yorik Oct 07 '15 at 20:10
  • 2
    @Yorik I wasn't contesting that it was possible, just that it was what actually happened. – Nick Coad Oct 21 '15 at 04:59
  • 5
    This is complete garbage posited as fact with no evidence—and in face of evidence to the contrary from the actual makers of the movie. – Martin Bean Feb 01 '16 at 13:58
  • 1
    It should also be noted that all three of those PJ versions of The Lord Of The Rings were shot and edited — well, shot at least — on the same schedule: i.e. they were all more–or–less completed prior to the cinematic release of the Fellowship. Delaying the releases by a year each was so as to strike the market during peak profitability. – can-ned_food Apr 01 '17 at 06:38
  • Though I still hold on to my initial thoughts that rushed and botched up post fx work can produce a green to bleed on to the real set. The real reason is because of something similar to "mastering" in the audio world, in the cinematic world your last finishing step in completing a movie is color grading it, I'm not sure what the exact technical term. But like "mastering" where you make slight changes in EQ and compression to polish your track, in cinematic world you adjust small amounts of color for the movie. Just like CD's, movies can be re-colored many timies before the final result is ok'd – Shimon Ben LouLou Sep 23 '21 at 07:21