The mythical rain code of The Matrix is not an indecipherable equation: it's just a bunch of recipes for making sushi🤪🧐👀
The Wachowski sisters made everything in the science fiction movie iconic.
What the Wachowski sisters released in theaters in 1999 completely changed science fiction.
The Matrix immediately became a benchmark of the genre, but it also managed to combine philosophy and action in an absolutely stunning combination.
Everything that could be seen from the film amazed from the very first moment, just as it happened with the green code rain that appears on screen.
But, what does it exactly show? In 2017, Simon Whiteley revealed that he was responsible for its creation after an initial rejection from the directors of an initial design.
The artist had the task of giving a new spin to his idea, which had to be based on the Asian world.
"The Wachowski sisters felt that the design was not traditional or old-fashioned enough.
They wanted something more Japanese, more manga style. They asked me if I wanted to try working on the code, mainly because my wife is Japanese and could help me understand the characters and tell me which ones were appropriate and which ones were not."
Once at home, he appropriated a good number of Japanese cookbooks from his wife, finding that the recipes inspired him.
During the following weeks, his task was to hand-paint each of the Japanese letters, which were later digitized to appear like a waterfall in The Matrix.
However, Whiteley confessed that initially, they moved from left to right but noticed that "it did not evoke any emotion," so he went for what we finally saw in the cinema.
"The movie is very machine-oriented. I love the idea that it deals with something so mechanical, but that the code itself comes from something so organic and fluid," the artist told Wired.