Film and television The pods in which the machines keep humans have been compared to images in Metropolis, and the work of M. C. Escher. A resemblance to the eerie worlds of Swiss artist H.R. Giger was also recognized. The pods can be seen in Welcome to Paradox Episode 4 "News from D Street" from a 1986 short story of the same name by Andrew Weiner which aired on September 7, 1998, on the SYFY Channel and has a remarkably similar concept. In this episode the hero is unaware he is living in virtual reality until he is told so by "the code man" who created the simulation and enters it knowingly. The Wachowskis have described Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a formative cinematic influence, and as a major inspiration on the visual style they aimed for when making The Matrix. Rainer Werner Fassbinders German TV Miniseries World on a Wire from 1973, an adaption of the novel Simulacron-3, served as inspirational source for some details of The Matrix, such as the transfer between the real world and the Matrix-simulation via telephone / phonebooth. Reviewers have also commented on similarities between The Matrix and other late-1990s films such as Strange Days, Dark City and The Truman Show. The similarity of the film's central concept to a device in the long-running series Doctor Who has also been noted. As in the film, the Matrix of that series (introduced in the 1976 serial The Deadly Assassin) is a massive computer system which one enters using a device connecting to the head, allowing users to see representations of the real world and change its laws of physics; but if killed there, they will die in reality. The action scenes of The Matrix were also strongly influenced by live-action films such as those of director John Woo. The martial arts sequences were inspired by Fist of Legend, a critically acclaimed 1995 martial arts film starring Jet Li. The fight scenes in Fist of Legend led to the hiring of Yuen as fight choreographer.
Film and television The pods in which the machines keep humans have been compared to images in Metropolis, and the work of M. C. Escher. A resemblance to the eerie worlds of Swiss artist H.R. Giger was also recognized. The pods can be seen in Welcome to Paradox Episode 4 "News from D Street" from a 1986 short story of the same name by Andrew Weiner which aired on September 7, 1998, on the SYFY Channel and has a remarkably similar concept. In this episode the hero is unaware he is living in virtual reality until he is told so by "the code man" who created the simulation and enters it knowingly The Wachowskis have described Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a formative cinematic influence and as a major inspiration on the visual style they aimed for when making The Matrix. Rainer Werner Fassbinders German TV Miniseries World on a Wire from 1973, an adaption of the novel Simulacron-3, served as inspirational source for some details of The Matrix, such as the transfer between the real world and the Matrix-simulation via telephone / phonebooth. Reviewers have also commented on similarities between The Matrix and other late-1990s films such as Strange Days, Dark City and The Truman Show. The similarity of the film's central concept to a device in the long-running series Doctor Who has also been noted. As in the film, the Matrix of that series (introduced in the 1976 serial The Deadly Assassin) is a massive computer system which one enters using a device connecting to the head, allowing users to see representations of the real world and change its laws of physics; but if killed there, they will die in reality. The action scenes of The Matrix were also strongly influenced by live-action films such as those of director John Woo. The martial arts sequences were inspired by Fist of Legend, a critically acclaimed 1995 martial arts film starring Jet Li. The fight scenes in Fist of Legend led to the hiring of Yuen as fight choreographer