Great Scene: “The Matrix”

“You take the blue pill, the story ends… you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland.”

One way to up your screenwriting chops is to study great scenes. Analyze their structure, themes, character dynamics. Why do they work? What are their narrative elements that elevate them to greatness? Let’s face it: In a fundamental way, screenwriting is scene-writing, so the more we learn about this aspect of the craft, the better.

Today: The 1999 movie The Matrix, written by the Wachowski Brothers. IMDB plot summary:

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Here is the screenplay of the scene:

And the movie scene:

One way to create tension in a story is to give the Protagonist a choice: Do this or do that? It also helps to define character, the decision a sign of the Protagonist to go forward with their journey or turn back.

Here Neo makes a choice … to go forward.

To read all of the entries in the Great Scene archive, go here.